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THEOLOGICAL   ESSAYS 


BY 


FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE,  M.  A., 

U 
CHAPLAIN   OF    LINCOLN'S    INN. 


II  s'en  faut  peut-etre  que  le  christianisme,  a  cette  heure  qui  nous  parait  si  avancee,  ait 
prodait  dans  la  conscience  et  dans  la  vie  de  l'humanite  toutes  ses  applications,  ait  ex- 
prime  toute  sa  pensee,  ait  dit  son  dernier  mot.  Dans  un  sens,  il  a  tout  dit  des  l'abord  ; 
dans  un  autre  sens,  il  a  beaucoup  a  dire  encore,  et  le  monde  ne  finira  que  quand  le  chris- 
tian isme  aura  tout  dit. — Vixet.  — 


FROM  THE  SECOND  LONDON  EDITION. 


WITH    A    NEW    PREFACE    AND     OTHER     ADDITIONS. 


R  E  DF I E  L  D 

110    AND    112    NASSAU    STREET      NEW    YORK. 

18  5  4. 


TO 

<       ALFRED  TENNYSON,  ESQ. 
Ifyistt   fMnah* 

My  Dear  Sir, 

I  have  maintained  in  these  Essays  that  a  Theology  which  does  not 
correspond  to  the  deepest  thoughts  and  feelings  of  human  beings  cannot 
be  a  true  Theology.  Your  writings  have  taught  me  to  enter  into  many 
of  those  thoughts  and  feelings.  Will  you  forgive  me  the  presumption  of 
offering  you  a  book  which  at  least  acknowledges  them  and  does  them 
homage  ? 

As  the  hopes  which  I  have  expressed  in  this  volume  are  more  likely 
to  be  fulfilled  to  our  children  than  to  ourselves,  I  might  perhaps  ask 
you  to  accept  it  as  a  present  to  one  of  your  name,  in  whom  you  have 
given  me  a  very  sacred  interest.  Many  years,  I  trust,  will  elapse,  before 
he  knows  that  there  are  any  controversies  in  the  world  into  which  he 
has  entered.  Would  to  God  that  in  a  few  more  he  may  find  that  they 
have  ceased  !  At  all  events,  if  he  should  ever  look  into  these  Essays, 
they  may  tell  him  what  meaning  some  of  the  former  generation  attached 
to  words,  which  will  be  familiar  and  dear  to  his  generation,  and  to  thoso 
that  follow  his, — how  there  were  some  who  longed  that  the  bells  of 
our  churches  might  indeed 


Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
'Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

Believe  me, 

My  dear  Sir, 
Yours  very  truly  and  gratefully, 

F.  D.  Maurice. 

186716 


/* 


«r 


IWIVER8 

£*UFORNlL 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


A  Lady,  once  a  Member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  who  died  some 
years  ago,  desired  me  in  her  will  to  apply  a  small  sum  to  purposes  in 
which,  I  "  knew  that  she  was  interested."  It  was  not  difficult  to 
comply  with  the  letter  of  this  command,  as  she  was  interested  in 
many  benevolent  undertakings.  But  I  was  aware  that  the  words  of 
her  bequest  had  a  special  meaning,  and  that  she  intended  to  lay  me 
under  the  obligation  of  writing,  or  procuring  to  be  written,  some  book 
especially  addressed  to  Unitarians. 

I  have  made  several  efforts  to  execute  this  task,  but  have  never  done 
anything  which  gave  me  the  least  satisfaction.  A  mere  controversial 
work  I  felt  that  I  could  not  compose.  Such  works,  so  far  as  my  expe- 
rience has  gone,  do  little  else  than  harm  to  those  who  write,  and  to 
those  who  read  them.  Still  it  has  been  a  great  weight  on  my  con- 
science, that  I  was  neglecting  a  request  so  solemnly  conveyed  to  me. 

Some  months  ago  I  seemed  to  see  a  way  in  which  I  might  acquit 
myself  of  the  obligation.  A  series  of  Discourses  which  had  occurred  to 
me  as  suitable  for  my  own  Congregation,  in  the  interval  between  Quin- 
quagesima  Sunday,  and  Trinity  Sunday,  might,  I  thought,  embrace  all  the 
topics  which  I  should  wish  to  bring  under  the  notice  of  Unitarians.  It 
was  suggested  by  a  friend  that  I  should  throw  each  discourse  into  the 
form  of  an  Essay,  after  it  had  been  preached.  By  following  this 
advice,  I  have  been  able  to  avail  myself  of  criticisms  which  were  made 
on  the  sermons  when  they  were  delivered  ;  to  introduce  many  topics, 
which  would  have  been  unsuitable  for  the  pulpit ;  and  at  the  same 
time,  I  hope,  to  retain  something  of  the  feeling  of  one  who  is  addressing 
actual  men  with  whom  he  sympathises,  not  opponents  with  whom  he 


VI.  ADVERTISEMENT. 

is  arguing.  I  did  not  allude  to  Unitarians  while  I  was  preaching.  I 
have  said  scarcely  anything  to  them  in  writing,  which  I  do  not  think 
just  as  applicable  to  the  great  body  of  my  contemporaries,  of  all  classes 
and  opinions.  Nearly  every  Essay  has  been  re-written,  and  greatly 
enlarged  in  its  passage  out  of  the  sermon  state.  Two  were  originally 
composed  in  their  present  form. 

Though  I  have  printed  the  Essays  one  after  another,  before  the 
whole  work  was  completed,  that  I  might  be  compelled  to  perform  a 
task  which  I  had  deferred  so  long,  I  cannot  ask  for  any  toleration  on 
the  plea  of  haste.  The  book  expresses  thoughts  which  have  been  work- 
ing in  my  mind  for  years ;  the  method  of  it  has  not  been  adopted  care- 
lessly; even  the  composition  has  undergone  frequent  revision.  No 
labor  I  have  been  engaged  in  has  occupied  me  so  much,  or  interested 
me  more  deeply.  I  hope  it  may  be  the  means  of  leading  some  to  a  far 
higher  knowledge  than  their  guide  has  ever  attained. 

May  2-1,  1853. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


A  critic  of  these  Essays  in  the  November  number 
of  the  Prospective  Review,  observes  that  I  have  "not 
the  art  of  convincing  "  him  ;  but  then,  "  that  it  is  startling 
to  think  how  few  writers  ever  do  radically  overturn  any 
mature  system  of  belief."  I  certainly  never  suspected 
myself  of  possessing  this  "art."  I  do  not  know  whether 
there  is  such  an  "  art."  If  there  is,  and  if  I  had  it,  I 
am  not  certain  that  I  should  wish  to  exercise  it.  To 
overturn  "  radically  a  mature  system  of  belief"  is  the 
very  last  object  of  my  ambition.  There  are  some  Uni- 
tarians, and  some  Trinitarians  also,  who  are  not  very 
mature  in  their  convictions,  not  very  settled  in  their 
belief,  who  have  tried  systems,  and  are  not  content  with 
them.  To  such  I  addressed  myself.  By  some  of  these 
I  have  been  understood.  They  have  responded  to  my 
words  with  more  sympathy  than  I  had  any  right  to 
expect.  For  they  have  perceived  that  I  have  not  wished 
to  unsettle  them  in  their  opinions,  or  to  bring  them  to 
mine,  but  to  show  that  God  has  laid  a  foundation  for 
them  and  for  me  upon  which  we  may  stand  together. 


viii  PREFACE. 

I  should  wish  these  weary  and  earnest  seekers  to  read 
the  Article  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  to  ask  them- 
selves whether  they  find  there  what  they  are  looking 
for.  The  Review  is  written  with  much  gracefulness 
and  eloquence.  It  contains  the  latest  message  of 
the  new  Unitarian  school.  It  undertakes  to  expose  the 
feebleness  of  my  analysis,  and  the  unsatisfactoriness  of 
my  logic.  Very  likely  it  may  have  succeeded.  But 
the  question  at  issue  between  us  is  not  that  at  all,  not 
whether  they  are  good  reasoners  and  I  am  a  bad  one, 
but  what  Gospel  they  have  to  bring  to  mankind,  what 
light  they  have  to  throw  on  all  the  questionings  and 
yearnings  of  the  human  spirit,  what  they  can  show  has 
been  done  for  the  deliverance  of  our  race  and  of  its 
members,  what  hope  they  can  give  us  of  that  which 
shall  yet  be  done.  On  that  issue  I  am  willing  to  put 
their  creed  and  mine.  That  which  is  true  in  itself,  that 
which  the  God  of  Truth  declares  to  his  creatures,  can, 
I  am  sure,  bear  the  test.  What  proceeds  from  man  will 
never  satisfy  man. 

I  have  no  cause  to  complain  of  the  Writer  of  this 
Article  for  want  of  courtesy  to  me  personally.  On  the 
contrary,  he  has  paid  me  compliments  to  which  I  am  not 
entitled,  and  which  I  am  bound  to  disclaim.  He  thinks 
that  I  have  some  good  and  genial  qualities  of  my  own  ; 
that  I  should  probably  prefer  truth  to  a  lie,  if  I  had  not 
set  myself  to  defend  certain  Articles  of  Faith.  That 
necessity  leads  me  into  "  miserable  juggling,"  and  makes 
me  an  object  of  the  Reviewer's  deepest  compassion.  It 
is  very  agreeable  thus  to  get  all  honors  for  oneself,  and 
to  have  all  one's  crimes  attributed  to  an  unfortunate 


PREFACE.  ix 

position.  I  feel  the  temptation  to  accept  a  distinction 
which  sets  the  conscience  so  much  at  ease,  and  gives 
one's  vanity  such  a  pleasant  stimulus.  But  I  cannot  do 
so  without  proving-  myself  not  to  be  what  the  Reviewer 
is  kind  enough  to  say  that  I  am,  but  the  very  opposite 
of  it, — without  being  guilty  of  a  conscious  and  inward 
falsehood.  I  know  that  the  Creed  which  leads  me,  as 
the  Reviewer  thinks,  to  contradict  my  better  nature, 
gives  me  an  interest  in  my  fellows,  a  sympathy  with 
mankind,  which  I  have  not  naturally,  and  which  I  find 
it  exceedingly  hard  to  maintain.  I  know  that  that 
Creed  has  led  me  to  desire  truth  in  my  inward  parts, 
and  to  resist  those  tendencies  to  "  juggling"  and  trick- 
ery into  which  the  Reviewer  supposes  that  it  tempts  me. 
I  know,  moreover  that  the  belief  in  fixed  Articles 
respecting  the  relations  and  acts  of  God  has  enabled  me, 
and  does  enable  me,  to  believe  that  the  world  is  pro- 
gressive, and  not  stationary;  just  as  the  belief  in  the 
fixed  article  respecting  gravitation  has  given  an  impulse 
to  all  the  inquiries  of  natural  students.  If,  after  nearly 
6,000  years  of  man's  existence,  we  assume  that  nothing 
is  known  respecting  the  questions  which  men  have  felt 
to  concern  them  most,  we  shall  not  expect  that  any- 
thing will  be  known.  I  contend  that  articles  do  not 
crush  inquiry,  but  awaken  it ;  frhat  they  do  not  hinder 
education,  but  show  how  we  may  avoid  superstitions 
which  have  hindered  it  most  effectually  ;  that  they  do 
not  oblige  us  to  be  harsh  or  repulsive  to  any  men 
of  any  sect,  but  qualify  us  to  understand  them, 
to  sympathise  with  them,  to  justify  their  opposing 
thoughts,  to  reconcile  them.     These  doctrines  I  main- 

A* 


x  PREFACE. 

tained  in  the  first  book  which  I  wrote  after  I  took  orders.* 
The  experience  of  nineteen  very  eventful  years  in  Eng- 
lish Ecclesiastical  history  has  led  me  to  change  some 
of  the  opinions  which  I  expressed  in  that  book.  I  would 
not  impose  our  Articles  upon  the  students  in  our  Univer- 
sities, because  I  see  that  by  doing  so  we  tempt  them  to 
dishonesty,  and  lead  them  to  dislike  a  document  which 
I  believe  they  ought  to  love.  But  the  other  convic- 
tions which  I  maintained  then,  instead  of  being  shaken, 
have  been  confirmed  by  all  I  have  seen,  heard,  thought, 
and  regretted  since.  I  am  more  than  ever  persuaded 
that  they  whose  zeal  for  progress  leads  them  to  preach 
that  the  Bible  is  a  collection  of  obsolete  Hebrew  stories, 
are  seeking  to  defraud  the  world  of  the  treasure  to 
which  it  has  owed  its  past  and  will  owe  its  future  pro- 
gress ;  that  those  who  tell  us  that  we  may  not  express 
the  facts  and  principles  of  the  Bible  in  popular  Creeds 
and  teach  them  to  our  children,  leave  us  at  the  mercy 
of  coteries,  where  men  and  women  prostrate  themselves 
before  some  newspaper  oracle  which  allows  them  no 
freedom  whatever  ; — that  those  who  would  take  from  us 
our  intellectual  formularies,  under  pretence  that  if  we 
cast  them  off  we  shall  do  greater  justice  to  the  earnest 
convictions  of  those  who  dissent  from  us,  are  not  just  to 
these  convictions  themselves,  but  very  intolerant  of 
them  ;  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  we  are  bound  by  those 
forms,  in  spite  of  our  own  natural  narrowness,  sectarian- 
ism, and  dogmatism,  to  recognise  and  honor  the  striv- 
ings after  truth  of  every  man  whatsoever,  even  of  the 
man  who  scorns  us  and  hates  us  most. 

*  Subscription  no  Bondage ;    or,  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  guides  in 
Academic  Education.     Oxford.     1835. 


PREFACE.  xi 

In  connexion  with  this  subject,  I  shall  allude  to  an 
event  of  which  it  would  be  affectation  to  suppose  that 
the  readers  of  this  book  are  altogether  ignorant.  Most 
of  them  will  have  heard  that  the  publication  of  it  has 
led  to  my  expulsion  from  a  College  connected  with  the 
Church  of  England.  The  inference  has  been  readily 
drawn,  that  I  shall  now  feel  the  position  which  I  have 
taken  up  as  a  defender  of  the  Church  and  its  formularies 
to  be  untenable,  that  I  must  have  learnt  in  myself  how 
galling  that  yoke  is  which  I  have  wished  that  other 
men  should  endure. 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  be  suspected  by  some 
of  a  base  motive  for  what  I  am  going  to  say  ;  but  I 
know  that  there  are  those  who  will  believe  that  I  am 
speaking  solemnly,  deliberately,  as  in  the  presence  of 
God.  I  affirm,  then,  that  during  the  thirteen  years 
which  I  passed  in  that  College,  I  never  was  restrained 
from  uttering  one  word  which  I  thought  it  would  be  good 
or  right  to  utter  before  my  Class,  by  the  obligation  under 
which  I  had  laid  myself  to  teach  according  to  the  for- 
mularies of  the  Church  of  England  ;  that  I  should  have 
suppressed,  in  obedience  to  what  have  been  called  my 
"  sectarian  timidities, "  many  words  which  I  did  utter, 
if  those  formularies  had  not  given  me  boldness,  had  not 
raised  me  to  a  higher  point  of  view  than  my  own,  had 
not  warned  me  against  the  peril  and  guilt  of  accepting 
the  opinions  of  the  age  as  my  guides.  I  declare  that 
if  I  have  ever  been  able  to  see  any  method  in  history, 
civil  or  ecclesiastical,  or  to  make  my  pupils  see  it,  the 
Bible  and  these  formularies  have  shown  me  that  method. 
I  declare  further,  that  if  I  have  been  able  to  teach   my 


xii  PREFACE. 

pupils, — and  I  have  tried  diligently  to  teach  them, — 
that  they  are  to  reverence  the  convictions  of  all  men 
of  all  sects  and.  schools,  and  to  show  them  sympathy,  I 
have  done  what  I  should  not  have  been  encouraged  to 
do,  or  have  thought  it  safe  to  do,  if  I  had  not  taken 
these  Articles  as  my  own  teachers  and  helpers,  and  if  I 
had  not  considered  that  it  was  my  duty,  as  far  as  I  could, 
to  impregnate  those  who  would  afterward  be  ministers 
in  the  Church  with  their  spirit. 

Once  more,  the  fact  that  I  had  accepted  these  Articles 
and  had  bound  myself  to  teach  according  to  them,  made 
me  comparatively  indifferent  about  the  question,  whether 
my  view  of  the  right  method  of  education  was  the  same 
with  that  of  my  superior  for  the  time  being.  I  had 
announced  over  and  over  again  in  various  forms  of  lan- 
guage, that  I  did  not  look  upon  our  Articles  as  marking 
out  a  close  and  narrow  line  between  two  opposite  schools, 
and  as  authorising  us  to  denounce  both ;  but  as  announce- 
ments of  a  higher  truth,  which  should  lead  us  to  deal  fairly 
with  the  strongest  assertions  of  both.  I  could  not  lecture 
on  Church  History  without  telling  my  pupils  that  Creeds 
and  Articles  do  not  and  cannot  stifle  opinions,  seeing  that 
the  decrees  of  the  Nicene  Council  were  the  beginning, 
not  the  end,  of  the  Arian  controversy,  and  that  the  pro- 
clamation of  James  I.  against  discussions  upon  Election 
and  Predestination,  was  the  signal  for  the  most  furious 
war  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians  ever  waged.  The 
Principal  of  King's  College  had,  I  believe,  declared  him- 
self the  conservator  of  a  via  media  ;  he  probably  expects 
results  from  Articles  which  I  should  consider  most  unde- 
sirable, even  if  they  were  not  unattainable.     But  if,  in 


PREFACE.  xia 

the  face  of  my  statements,  he  could  accept  me  as  a  fel- 
low-worker, even  invite  me  to  become  one,  my  con- 
science was  clear.  I  could  teach  with  perfect  freedom, 
knowing  that  I  was  trying  to  obey  the  laws  which  we 
both  confessed,  not  feeling  that  I  was  more  tied  to  the 
habits  of  his  mind,  than  he  was  to  mine.  It  might  be 
reasonable  to  expect  that  such  a  connexion  would  at 
some  time  or  other  terminate.  But  it  would  have  termi- 
nated much  sooner, — it  would  have  been  immeasurably 
less  satisfactory  while  it  lasted, — if  there  had  been  no 
common  rule  to  which  all  the  members  of  the  College 
did  homage.  In  that  case,  the  fear  of  saying  something 
which  a  superior  would  disapprove  if  he  knew  it,  must 
be  continually  tormenting  the  mind  of  a  teacher.  He 
works  in  that  most  fretting-  of  all  chains,  the  sense  of 
some  unexpressed,  implicit  obligation  to  abstain  from 
acts  which  his  duty  to  his  pupils,  to  the  Church,  and  to 
God,  would  urge  him  to  perform. 

I  cannot  pretend  that  any  recent  experience  of  mine, 
either  in  a  College  or  in  the  Church,  has  in  the  least 
changed  my  opinion,  that  our  formularies  are  the  best 
protection  we  have,  against  the  exclusiveness  and  cruelty 
of  private  judgments.  If  our  Catechism  did  not  bear 
a  continual  witness  to  our  children  that  Christ  has 
redeemed  them  and  all  mankind,  how  could  we  resist 
the  dictation  of  writers  who  pronounce  it  a  heresy  to  say 
that  our  race  is  redeemed  at  all,  that  it  is  not  lying  under 
God's  curse  ?  If  our  Articles  did  not  put  forth  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ's  Godhead  and  Manhood  as  the  ground 
of  Theology,  before  they  speak  of  the  Fall  and  the  depra- 
vity of  man,  how  could  we  withstand  the  popular  theory, 


xiv  PREFACE. 

so  plausible,  so  gratifying  to  all  the  selfish  instincts  of 
religious  men,  that  the  Gospel  is  only  a  scheme  for  sav- 
ing them  from  the  ruin  which  God  decreed  for  the  uni- 
verse when  Adam  sinned  ?  If  the  Articles  had  not 
refused  to  dogmatise  on  the  meaning  of  the  word  Eter- 
nal, and  on  the  endlessness  of  evil,  what  could  prevent 
the  doctrine,  that  an  immense  majority  of  our  fellow- 
beings  are  in  an  utterly  hopeless  condition,  from  being 
regarded  as  the  characteristic  doctrine  of  Christian 
Divinity  ?  I  am  sure  that  it  has  been  so  regarded  by 
multitudes  of  our  lay  brethren,  and  that  therefore  the 
consciences  and  hearts  to  which  we  ought  to  present  our 
message  are  closed  against  it.  They  understand  us  to 
say  that  God  has  sent  His  Son  into  the  world,  not  to 
save  it,  but  to  condemn  it. 

I  count  it  the  highest  blessing  of  my  life  that  I  have 
been  permitted  to  become  a  witness,  that  the  Church  of 
England  gives  not  the  faintest  encouragement  to  so  hor- 
rible a  contradiction  of  God's  word.  I  receive  the 
cordial  and  generous  sympathy  which  has  been  shown 
to  me  by  persons  from  whom  I  had  no  right  to  expect 
it,  who  would  naturally  have  regarded  me  with  preju- 
dice and  suspicion,  not  as  rendered  as  to  me,  but  as  a 
proof  how  much  affection  towards  the  Church  there  is 
still  in  the  hearts  of  our  countrymen,  how  glad  they  are 
to  believe  that  she  is  not  what  her  sons  sometimes  repre- 
sent her  to  be.  And  though  opinions,  which  merely  as 
such,  are  a  thousand  times  weightier  than  mine,  are  in 
favor  of  forcing  our  Church  to  say  what  as  yet  she  does 
not  say,  I  believe  they  will  not  succeed  in  putting  a  new 
yoke  upon  our  necks.     I  believe  the  English  clergy  will 


PKEFACE.  xv 

assert  the  freedom  which  God  has  given  them, — the  free- 
dom of  being  silent  where  He  has  not  spoken,  being  well 
assured  that  if  they  do  not,  they  will  soon  be  compelled 
to  keep  silence  when  He  has  spoken,  nay,  to  deny  that 
He  wishes  that  all  men  should  be  saved,  though  He  has 

» 

declared  that  He  does. 

In  the  present  Edition  of  these  Essays,  I  have  altered 
some  passages  which  were  said  to  be  obscure,  and  have 
erased  some  which  have  caused  unnecessary  offence. 
In  the  Essay  on  the  Atonement,  besides  some  changes 
in  my  own  language,  I  have  made  one  omission  with 
very  great  reluctance.  I  had  quoted  the  beautiful  Col- 
lect for  the  Sunday  before  Easter.  I  quoted  it  simply 
to  show,  by  the  most  living  instance,  that  the  Church 
referred  the  Sacrifice  of  Christ  to  the  "  tender  love  of 
God  to  mankind."  I  never  even  alluded  to  the  clause 
which  speaks  of  our  "following  the  example  of  his  great 
humility,"  not  because  I  did  not  prize  it,  or  believe  that 
it  stood  in  the  closest  connexion  with  the  rest  of  the 
prayer,  but  because  it  did  not  concern  the  special  truth 
of  which  I  was  speaking.  Yet  I  read  with  my  own 
eyes,  in  one  of  our  religious  newspapers,  the  charge 
that  I  had  appealed  to  this  Collect  because  I  regarded 
Christ's  death  not  as  a  sacrifice,  but  simply  as  an 
example  :  and  because  I  wished  to  fix  that  opinion  upon 
the  Church  !  As  the  Church  believes,  and  as  I  believe, 
in  Christ's  Sacrifice,  not  in  a  narrower  or  more  "  atte- 
nuated" sense  than  that  in  which  this  religious  news- 
paper believes  it,  but  in  an  infinitely  wider  and  deeper 
sense, — as  I  believe  it  to  be  a  real  sacrifice  made  by  the 
Son,  of  His  whole  spirit,  soul  and  body,  to  the  Father, 


xv|  PREFACE. 

— as  I  believe  it  is  a  sacrifice  which  takes  away  sin,  a 
sacrifice,  satisfaction,  and  oblation  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world, — I  have  deliberately  blotted  out  a,  sen- 
tence which  was  worth  all  the  rest  of  the  Essay  together, 
rather  than  even  seem  to  sanction  so  monstrous  an  infer- 
ence. But  I  have  not,  of  course,  modified  in  the  slight- 
est degree  the  principles  which  I  maintained  in  that 
Essay. 

The  Church  does  not  maintain  in  one  prayer,  but  in 
all  its  prayers,  that  the  love  of  God  is  the  only  root  and 
ground  of  Christ's  Atonement,  and  that  the  perfect  sub- 
mission of  the  Son  to  the  will  of  the  Father  constitutes 
the  deepest  meaning  of  the  Sacrifice.  These  principles 
belong  to  the  essence  of  our  faith.  In  life,  in  death,  I 
hope  I  may  never  abandon  them  or  shrink  from  confess- 
ing them,  and  from  repudiating  any  notion  which  sets 
them  at  nought  or  weakens  them.  I  have  perceived  that 
the  fact  of  the  Atonement,  which  is  the  fact  of  the  Gos- 
pel, is  lost  to  numbers  of  people  who  are  very  earnest 
and  who  desire  to  be  thoroughly  Christian,  through  the 
restless  efforts  which  their  understandings  make  to 
apprehend  the  cause  of  it.  They  do  not  believe  the 
Atonement,  but  an  explanation  of  the  Atonement  which 
they  have  received  from  others  or  devised  for  them- 
selves. And  so  they  do  not  actually  feed  upon  the 
Sacrifice  which  is  given  for  the  life  of  the  world,  but  on 
some  dry  notions  about  the  Sacrifice,  which  cannot  give 
life  to  any  human  being.  But  this  is  not  all.  These 
explanations,  being  exceedingly  plausible,  seeming  won- 
derfully to  conspire  with  the  experiences  of  a  sin-sick 
soul,  being  such  as  a  Heathen  would  use  to  defend  the 


PREFACE.  xvii 

Sacrifices  which  he  offers  to  a  malignant  power,  come 
into  the  most  frightful  collision  with  those  which  the 
Scripture  gives  for  the  Sacrifice  wherewith  God  is  well 
pleased.  There  may  be  myriads  of  aspects  of  this 
cardinal  doctrine  which  I  have  perceived  very  imper- 
fectly, and  into  which  I  shall  rejoice  to  enter  more 
deeply.  But  they  must  be  such  aspects  as  do  not  inter- 
fere with  and  invert  the  very  nature  and  meaning  of  the 
Sacrifice.  The  more  unspeakably  precious  we  consider 
it  to  each  man  and  for  all  mankind,  the  more  vehement 
shall  we  be  in  protesting  against  misrepresentations  of 
it,  which  are  leading  more  than  we  know  or  can  count, 
to  cast  it  out  of  their  thoughts  altogether. 

I  would  make  a  similar  remark  in  reference  to  the 
Essays  on  the  Resurrection  and  the  Judgment  Day, 
which  I  have  altered  very  slightly.  It  has  been  affirmed 
that  I  have  sought  to  explain  away  the  doctrines  of  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Body,  and  of  Christ's  final  Judg- 
ment ;  or  at  least,  to  throw  an  atmosphere  of  doubt  over 
them.  I  affirm  that  I  have  endeavored  to  bring  forth 
these  doctrines,  which  I  hold  to  be  most  vital  and  neces- 
sary,  out  of  the  atmosphere  of  doubt,  which  popular 
theories,  as  it  seems  to  me,  have  thrown  over  them.  I 
do  not  say  in  any  case  who  does  or  does  not  hold  these 
theories,  or  any  modification  of  them.  But  I  find  that 
they  have  darkened  and  are  darkening  the  faith  of  mul- 
titudes in  the  articles  of  the  Creed,  and  are  destroying 
their  practical  effect  on  many  more.  Therefore  I  have 
spoken.  Unitarians  are  probably  less  pleased  with  my 
words  on  these  subjects  than  any  other  persons.  I  did 
not  write  to  please  them,  or  anybody,  but  to  maintain 


xvm  PREFACE. 

what  I  think  is  the  truth.  And  I  ask  any  serious  per- 
son whether  those  who  say  that  the  doctrines  of  the 
Atonement,  of  the  Resurrection,  and  of  the  Judgment, 
can  only  be  received  in  connexion  with  certain  meta- 
physical, legal,  or  commercial  explanations, — or  I  who 
say  that  they  may  be  received  simply  as  good  news  from 
Heaven,  which  suffering  people  on  earth  have  need  of, 
most  deserve  to  be  accused  of  Rationalism  ? 

I  have  rewritten  the  Essay  on  Eternal  Life  and  Eter- 
nal Death,  and  greatly  enlarged  it.  It  has  been  sup- 
posed that  I  have  argued  for  some  mitigated  notion  of 
future  punishment,  as  more  consistent  with  the  mercy 
of  God  than  the  ordinary  one.  To  me  the  ordinary  doc- 
trine seems  full  of  the  most  miserable  mitigations  and 
indulgences  for  evil.  I  plead  for  the  Love  of  God, 
which  resists  sin,  and  triumphs  over  it,  not  for  a  mercy 
which  relaxes  the  penalties  of  it.  With  continual  effort, 
— only  by  the  help  of  that  revelation  of  God  which  is 
made  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ, — I  am  able  to  believe  that 
there  is  a  might  of  Good  which  has  overcome  Evil,  and 
does  overcome  it.  To  maintain  this  conviction,  to  believe 
in  the  Love  of  God,  in  spite  of  the  appearances  which 
the  world  presents  and  the  reluctance  of  my  own  nature, 
I  find  to  be  the  great  fight  of  life  ;  one  in  which  we  are 
continually  baffled,  but  in  which  we  must  hold  on,  if  we 
are  not  to  become  haters  of  each  other,  as  we  are  always 
prone  to  be.  I  admire  unspeakably  those  who  can  believe 
in  the  Love  of  God  and  can  love  their  brethren  in  spite 
of  the  opinion  which  they  seem  to  cherish,  that  He 
has  doomed  them  to  destruction.  I  am  sure  that  their 
faith  is  as  much  purer  and  stronger  than  mine,  as  it  is 


PKEFACE.  xix 

than  their  own  system.  But  if  that  system  does  pre- 
vent me  from  believing  that  which  God's  word,  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ,  the  witness  of  my  own  conscience,  the 
miseries  and  necessities  of  the  universe,  compel  me  to 
believe,  I  must  throw  it  off.  I  do  not  call  upon  them 
to  deny  anything  they  have  been  wont  to  hold  ;  but  I 
call  upon  them  to  join  us  in  acknowledging  God's  Love 
and  His  redemption  first  of  all,  and  then  to  consider  ear- 
nestly what  is  or  is  not  compatible  with  that  acknow- 
ledgment. As  it  is,  we  are  desired  to  believe  the  popu- 
lar tenet  respecting  the  future  condition  of  the  world 
absolutely,  and  God's  love  to  mankind  in  a  sense.  I 
appeal  to  every  devout  man,  to  every  preacher  of  the 
Gospel  especially,  dares  he  adopt  this  order  in  his  con- 
victions ?  Must  he  not  confess  that  he  has  no  good  news 
lor  mankind  if  he  does  ? 

I  have  expanded  the  Theological  part  of  the  Essay 
on  Regeneration,  and  have  added  to  that  on  the  Trinity 
some  observations  respecting  the  Unitarian  notions  of 
Prayer.  I  have  also  added  some  passages  at  the  end 
of  the  Essay  on  Inspiration,  the  purpose  of  which  has 
been  perhaps  more  misunderstood  than  that  of  any  in 
the  book.  It  is  against  the  very  low  notion  of  the  worth 
of  the  Bible  and  of  the  nature  of  Inspiration  which  seems 
to  prevail  in  the  religious  world,  that  I  have  there  pro- 
tested. I  hold  the  Bible  to  be  the  Book  of  life  ;  1  see 
it  turned  into  a  Book  of  Death.  It  is  treated  in  a  way 
in  which  no  other  book  is  treated.  The  divine  method 
of  it  is  despised  ;  it  is  reduced  into  a  collection  of  bro- 
ken sentences  ;  these  are  used  in  the  most  reckless  irre- 
verent manner  by  any  one  who  has  a  notion  of  his  own 


xx  PREFACE. 

to  defend,  or  a  notion  of  an  adversary  to  attack.  The 
posture  of  students  and  learners  tgwards  it  is  abandoned 
by  those  who  yet  profess  to  accept  it  as  their  only  guide 
and  authority.  There  must  be  something  very  wrong 
in  our  belief,  when  this  is  our  habitual  practice.  Have 
we  not  lost  the  faith  in  Inspiration,  while  we  have  been 
talking  about  it  and  inventing  theories  about  it?  Have 
we  not  lost  our  faith  in  the  Inspirer?  I  trust  to  show 
shortly,  in  a  book  which  I  have  been  writing  for  several 
years  on  the  Gospels  and  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
that  I  do  not  receive  the  words  of  the  Bible  less  lite- 
rally, or  regard  it  less  as  a  whole,  or  submit  to  it  less 
an  authority,  than  those  who  have  complained  of  me 
because  I  cannot  bear  to  see  their  sons  driven  into 
hopeless  infidelity  by  their  hard  and  cruel  attempts  to 
substitute  a  tenet  concerning  Inspiration  for  the  Divine 
Word. 

I  ought  not  to  conclude  this  Preface  without  referring 
to  the  kindness  and  generosity  of  the  new  Bishop  of 
Natal,  who  chose  a  moment  when  he  knew  that  mv  cha- 
racter  was  in  disgrace  with  the  religious  public,  and 
when  any  acknowledgement  of  me  might  be  perilous  to 
him,  for  dedicating  to  me  a  volume  of  admirable  Ser- 
mons. The  very  great  delight  which  I  felt  at  receiving 
such  a  testimony  from  such  a  man,  would  have  been  no 
compensation  for  my  sorrow,  that  he  should  have  risked 
his  own  reputation  for  the  sake  of  a  friend,  from  many 
of  whose  opinions  he  had  expressed  his  dissent,  if  I  had 
not  seen  in  this  act  a  pledge  of  his  possessing  those  qua^ 
lities  of  courage  and  indifference  to  self,  which  are  so 
especially  needed  in   a  Chief  Pastor  of  the  flock,   and 


PREFACE.  xxi 

which  have  very  remarkably  characterized  our  Colonial 
Bishops.  For  the  events  which  followed  this  Dedica- 
tion I  cannot  feel  anything  but  thankfulness.  Though 
Dr.  Colenso  had  proved  by  his  Sermons  that  he  believed 
in  the  endlessness  of  future  punishments,  he  had  asserted 
most  broadly  and  distinctly  his  conviction,  that  we  are 
living  in  a  world  which  God  loves,  and  which  Christ  has 
redeemed,  and  had  affirmed  that  this  was  the  message 
which  he  was  called  to  bear  to  the  natives,  as  well  as  to 
the  colonists,  of  South  Africa.  Those  who  think  that 
the  world  is  not  redeemed,  that  God's  love  is  limited  to 
a  few,  felt  that  a  golden  opportunity  was  afforded  them 
of  obtaining  from  the  authorities  of  the  English  Church, 
a  practical  contradiction  of  the  doctrines  which  they 
abhor.  The  attempt  was  made,  and  it  failed.  Bishop 
Colenso  is  permitted  to  carry  to  the  English  and  the 
Zoolus,  the  same  Gospel,  which  St.  Paul  was  denounced 
by  his  countrymen  as  a  heretic  and  blasphemer,  for  car- 
rying to  Jews  and  Gentiles,  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor. 
May  the  message  be  as  mighty  and  effectual  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  it  was  in»  the  first ! 

London,  December  9th,  1853. 


CONTENTS. 


m 


PAGE. 

ESSAY  I.— On  Charity, 1 

II.— On  Sin, 14 

III. — On  the  Evil  Spirit, 20 

IV. — On  the  Sense  of  Righteousness  in  Men,  and 

their  Discovery  of  a  Redeemer,      ...  42 

V. — On  the  Son  of  God, 59 

VI. — On  the  Incarnation, 76 

VII. — On  the  Atonement,  ......  98 

VIII. — On  the  Resurrection  of  the  Son  of  God  from 

Death,  the  Grave,  and  Hell,  ....  116 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

ESSAY  IX. — On  Justification  by  Faith,     ....         143 


X. — On  Regeneration, 102 


XI. — On  the  Ascension  of  Christ,  ,  192 

XII. — On  the  Judgment  Day, 217 

XIII. — On  Inspiration, 240 

XIV. — On  the  Personality  and  Teaching  of  the 

Holy  Spirit, 2G8 

XV. — On  the  Unity  of  the  Church,       .        .        .  289 

XVI. — On  the  Trinity  in  Unity,       ....  310 

Concluding  Essay — On  Eternal  Life  and  Eternal  Death,  335 


ESSAY    I . 


ON  CHARITY. 


St.  Paul  says,  Though  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could 
remove  mountains,  and  have  ?iot  Charity,  jT  am  nothing. 

Many  a  person  in  this  clay  has  exclaimed,  when  he  has 
heard  these  words,  "  If  the  Apostle  Paul  always  adhered  to 
that  doctrine,  how  readily  one  would  listen  to  him, — what 
sympathy  one  would  have  with  him  !  For  this  one  moment 
he  confesses  how  poor  all  those  dogmas  are,  on  which  he 
dwells  elsewThere  with  so  much  of  theological  refinement; 
faith,  which  he  told  the  Pomans  and  Galatians  was  necessary 
and  able  to  save  men  from  ruin,  shrinks  here  to  its  proper 
dimensions,  and  in  comparison  of  another  excellence  is  pro- 
nounced to  be  good  for  nothing.  It  is  for  divines  to  defend 
his  consistency  if  they  can  ;  we  are  only  too  glad  to  accept 
what  seems  to  us  a  splendid  inconsistency,  in  support  of  a 
principle  which  it  is  the  great  wrork  of  our  age  to  proclaim." 

I  have  been  often  tempted  to  answrer  a  person  who  spoke 
thus,  in  a  way  which  I  am  sure  wras  foolish  and  wrong.  I 
have  been  inclined  to  say,  "  The  Charity  which  the  Apostle 
1 


2  FALSE    MODE   OF  DEFENDING  ST.  PAUL. 

describes  is  not  the  least  that  tolerance  of  opinions,  that  dispo- 
sition to  fraternize  with  men  of  all  characters  and  creeds, 
which  you  take  it  to  be.  His  nomenclature  is  spiritual  and 
divine,  yours  human  and  earthly.  If  you  could  look  into  the 
real  signification  of  this  chapter,  you  would  not  find  that  you 
liked  it  much  better  than  what  he  says  of  Faith  elsewhere." 

This  language  is  impertinent  and  unchristian.  We  fall  into 
it  partly  because  we  look  upon  objectors  as  opponents  whom 
it  is  desirable  to  silence ;  partly  because  we  suppose  that  there 
is  a  spurious  Charity  prevalent  in  our  time,  which  must  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  real  and  divine  Charity ;  partly 
because  we  think  that  the  interests  of  Theology  demand  a 
more  vigorous  assertion  of  those  distinctive  Christian  tenets 
which  are  often  confounded  in  a  Vague  all-comprehending  phi- 
losophical Theory.  I  have  felt  these  motives  and  arguments 
too  strongly  not  to  sympathise  with  those  who  are  influenced 
by  them.  It  is  in  applying  them  to  practice  that  I  have  found 
how  much  I  might  be  misled  by  them. 

1.  I  know  I  can  silence  an  objector  by  telling  him  that  the 
Bible  means  something  altogether  different  from  that  which  it 
appears  to  mean.  He  does  not  care  to  discuss  any  question 
with  me  when  he  has  understood  that  there  is  no  medium  of 
communication  between  us;  that  I  am  speaking  a  langu. 
which  I  cannot  interpret  to  him.  lit;  believes  the  book  I 
honor  above  all  others  to  be  a  book  of  Cabbala,  and  he 
throws  it  away  accordingly.  And  if  I  afterwards  refer  to  any 
passages  of  beautiful  human  morality  which  I  think  may  im- 
press him  in  its  favor,  he  tells  me  plainly,  that  I  know  the 
intention  of  those  passages  is  not  what  the  words  indicate,  and 
that  the  conscience  of  mankind  responds  to  their  apparent,  not 
to  their  real  signification. 

I  have  done  this  service  to  him  by  that  method  of  mine. 
What  have  I  done  for  the  Bible  ?  I  have  practically  denied 
that  its   language  is   inspired,   and    that  the  truth  which  the 


COMPREHENSIVENESS    OF    THE    BIBLE.  3 

language  expresses  is  divine.  1^1  must  suppose  that  inspired 
language  is  the  most  inclusive  and  comprehensive  of  all  lan- 
guage ;  that  divine  truth  lies  beneath  all  the  imperfect  forms 
of  truth  which  men  have  perceived — sustaining  them,  not  con- 
tradicting them.  ;  If  a  particular  temper  or  habit  characterises 
a  man,  or  a  country,  or  an  age,  the  believer  in  a  Revelation 
would  naturally  conclude  that  there  must  be  an  affinity  be- 
tween this  temper  or  habit,  and  some  side  of  that  Revelation  , 
— he  would  search  earnestly  for  the  point  of  contact  between 
them,  and  rejoice  when  he  recognised  it.  He  might  find  the 
temper  or  habit  in  question  often  confused,  often  feeble,  often 
evil.  His  only  hope  of  removing  the  confusion,  strengthening 
the  feebleness,  counteracting  the  evil,  would  lie  in  the  power 
which  seemed  to  be  given  him  of  connecting  it  with  that  wider 
and  deeper  principle  from  which  it  had  been  separated. 
Every,  even  the  slightest,  inclination  on  the  part  of  persons 
who  were  habitually  suspicious  of  that  which  he  regarded  as 
J;ruth,  to  acknowledge  a  portion  of  it  as  bearing  upon  their 
lives,  he  would  eagerly  and  thankfully  hail.  So  far  from 
complaining  of  them  because  they  fixed  upon  a  certain  aspect 
of  the  Revelation,  remaining  indifferent  or  sceptical  about 
every  other,  he  would  consider  this  a  proof  that  they  were 
treating  it  in  the  most  natural  and  sincere  way, — accepting 
what  in  their  state  of  mind  they  could  most  practically  appre- 
hend and  use.  If  another  side  of  it  was  for  them  lying  in 
shadow,  he  might, — provided  he  had  any  clear  conviction  that 
God  has  His  own  way  of  guiding  His  creatures, — be  content 
that  they  should  not,  for  the  present,  try  to  bring  that  within 
the  range  of  their  vision.  At  all  events,  he  would  feel  that 
his  work  was  clearly  marked  out  for  him.  In  this,  as  in  all 
other  cases,  he  could  not  hope  to  arrive  at  the  unknown,  ex- 
cept through  that  which  is  perceived,  however  partially.  He 
would  not  quench  the  light  by  which  any  men  are  walking, 
under  pretence  that  it  is  merely  torch-light,  lest  he,  as  well  as 


4        HOW  TO  MEET  THE  TEMPER  OF  AN  AUE. 

they,  should  be  punished  with  complete  darkness.  If  I  have 
failed  to  act  upon  these  maxims,  I  am  certain  that  my  faith 
in  God's  Revelation  has  been  weak. 

2.  I  do  not  deny  that  there  is  much  in  the  feelings  which 
we  of  this  age  associate  with  the  word  Charity,  that  is  artifi- 
cial, fantastical,  morbid.  Most  will  admit  this  respecting  the 
charity  of  others — some  about  their  own.  I  do  not  deny  that 
the  talk  about  charity,  the  sensation  about  it,  even  the  attempt 
to  practise  it,  is  compatible  with  a  vast  amount  of  uncharita- 
bleness.  That  also  will  be  generally  admitted  ;  perhaps,  the 
confession  is  more  sincere  than  any  other  which  we  make.  It 
is  equally  true  that  each  school  has  its  own  notion  of  charity, 
that  the  definitions  of  it  are  unlike,  that  the  limitations  of  it 
are  various  and  capricious.  The  point  to  be  considered  is, 
whether  all  these  diversities,  subsisting  under  a  common  name, 
do  not  prove,  more  than  anything  else,  the  tendency  of  the 
time  in  which  they  are  found — the  direction  in  which  our 
thoughts   are  all  moving.     The  con  of  roen,  asleep  to^ 

many  obligations,  is  awake  to  this.  All  confess  that  tl 
ought  to  have  charity  of  some  kind.  Portraits  of  dry,  hard, 
cold-hearted  men,  who  have  in  them,  possibly,  a  sense  of  jus- 
tice and  right,  are  sure  to  produce  a  revolting,  as  from  some- 
thing profoundly  and  essentially  evil,  even  in  spectators  who 
can  look  upon  great  criminals  with  half-admiration,  as  gigantic 
and  heroical.  The  formalist  has  become  almost  the  name  for 
reprobation  among  us ;  that  from  which  every  one  shrinks 
himself,  and  which  he  attributes  to  those  whom  he  execrates 
most,  precisely  because  it  denotes  the  man  in  whom  charity 
has  been  sacrificed  to  mere  rule.  The  more  you  look  into  the 
discussions  of  different  parties  in  our  time,  the  more  you  will 
find  that,  however  narrow  and  exclusive  they  may  be,  compre- 
hension is  their  watchword.  We  separate  from  our  fellows, 
on  the  plea  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  comprehensive;  we 
strive  to  break  down  fences  which  other  people  have  raised, 


CHARITY    IN    OUR   DAY.  5 

even  while  we  are  making  a  thicker  and  more   thorny  one 
ourselves. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  observations  which  I  made  un- 
der the  last  head,  these  indications  might  appear  almost  to  de- 
termine the  course  which  a  divine  in  the  nineteenth  century 
should  follow,  though  by  adopting  it  he  departed  from  the  pre- 
cedents of  other  times.     The  same  motive  which  might  have 
led  one  of  the  reformers  to  speak  first  on  Faith, — because  all 
men,  whether  Romanists  or  Anti-Romanists,  in  some  sense  ac- 
knowledged the  necessity  of  it — should  incline  a  writer  in  this 
day  to  begin  his  moral  or  theological  discourses  from  Charity, 
at  whatever  point  he  may  ultimately  arrive.     But  there  would 
be  no   deviation  from    precedent.     The  doctors  of  the  first 
ages,  and  of  the  middle  ages,  continually  put  forth  the  Divine 
Charity  as  the  ground  upon  which  all  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  rest,  as  the  centre  round  which  they  revolve.     And  this 
was  done  not  merely  by  those  who  were  appealing  to  human 
sympathies,  but  in  scientific  treatises.     What  is  more  to  our 
purpose,  the  compilers  of  our  Prayer-book,  living  at  the  very 
time  when  Faith  was  the  watchword  of  all  parties,  thought  it 
wise  to  introduce  the  season  of  Lent  with  a  prayer  and  an 
epistle,  which  declare    that  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels, 
the  giving  all  our  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  the  giving  our  bodies 
to  be  burnt,  finally,  the  faith  which  removes  mountains,  with- 
out Charity,  are  nothing.     This  Loy.e  was  to  be  the  ground 
of  all  calls  to  repentance,  conversion,  humiliation,  self-restraint ; 
this  was  to  unfold  gradually  the  mystery  of  the  Passion,  and 
of  the  Resurrection,  the  mystery  of  Justification  by  Faith,  of 
the  New  Life,  of  Christ's  Ascension  and  Priesthood,  of  the 
Descent  of  the  Spirit,  of  the  Unity  of  the  Church.     This  was 
to  be  the  induction  into  the  deepest  mystery  of  all,  the  Name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     If  it 
is  asked  what  human  charity  can  have  to  do  with  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Godhead,  the  compilers  of  the  Prayer-book  would 


6  WHY   WE    SHOULD    BEGIN    FROM   IT. 

have  answered,  "  Certainly  nothing-  at  all,  if  human  charity  is 
not  the  image  and  counterpart  of  the  Divine;  if  there  can  be 
a  charity  in  man  which  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  thin 
endureth  all  things,  unless  it  was  first  in  God,  unless  it  be  the 
nature  and  being  of  God.  If  He  is  Charity,  His  acts  must 
spring  from  it  as  ours  should ;  Charity  will  be  the  key  to  unlock 
the  secrets  of  Divinity  as  well  as  of  Humanity."  As  a  Church- 
man, I  might,  perhaps,  venture  to  follow  out  a  hint,  which  rests 
on  such  an  authority  and  comes  to  us  supported  by  such  a 
prescription,  without  being  suspected  of  innovating  tenden- 
cies. 

3.  But  I  know  why  many  will  think  that  such  a  course  ma 
have  been  adapted  to  former  days,  and  yet  be  unsuitable  for 
ours.  I  shall  be  told  "  that  it  was  very  well  to  speak  of  Char- 
ity, divine  or  human,  when  the  importance  of  dogmas  and  of 
distinguishing  between  orthodox  and  heretical  dogmas,  was 
admitted,  nay,  if  that  is  possible,  exaggerated ;  but  that  now, 
when  all  dogmatic  teachings  are  scorned,  not  by  a  few  here 
and  there,  but  by  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;  when  it  is  the  minor- 
ity who  plead  for  them  and  feel  their  necessity ;  and  when 
the  popular  cry  is  for  some  union  of  parties  in  which  all  bar- 
riers, theological,  nay,  it  wxmld  s'eem  sometimes,  moral  also, 
shall  be  thrown  down : — at  such  a  time  to  speak  of  putting 
Charity  above  Faith,  or  of  referring  to  Charity  as  a  standard 
for  Faith,  is  either  to  palter  with  words  in  a  double  sense,  pre- 
tending that  you  agree  with  the  infidel,  while  you  keep  a 
reserved  opinion  in  your  own  heart  which  would  repel  him  if 
you  produced  it ; — or  else  it  is  to  give  up  your  arms  to  him, 
owning  that  he  has  vanquished." 

I  feel  as  strongly  as  these  objectors  can  feel,  that  this  age  is~^\ 
impatient   of  distinctions — of  the  distinction   between  Right 
and  Wrong,  as  well  as  of  that  between  Truth  and  Falsehood^ 
Of  all  its  perils,  this   seems  to  me  the  greatest,  that  which 
alone  gives  us  a  right  to  tremble  at  any  others  which  may  be 


DOGMATISM.  7 

threatening  it.  To  watch  against  this  temptation  in  ourselves, 
and  in  all  over  whom  we  have  any  charge  or  influence,  is,  I 
believe,  our  highest  duty.  In  performance  of  it,  I  should 
always  denounce  the  glorification  of  private  judgment,  as  fatal 
to  the  belief  in  Truth,  and  to  the  pursuit  of  it.  We  are  always 
tending  towards  the  notion  that  we  may  think  what  we  like  to 
think  ;  that  there  is  no  standard  to  which  our  thoughts  should 
be  conformed  ;  that  they  fix  their  own  standard.  Who  can 
toil  to  find,  that  which,  on  this  supposition,  he  can  make  ? 
Who  can  suffer,  that  all  may  share  a  possession  which  each 
man  holds  apart  from  his  neighbor  ? 

But  Dogmatism  is  not  the  antagonist  of  private  judgment. 
The  most  violent  assertor  of  hie  private  judgment  is  the  great- 
est dogmatist.  And,  conversely,  the  loudest  assertor  of  the 
dogmatical  authority  of  the  Church,  is  very  apt  to  be  the  most 
vehement  and  fanatical  stickler  for  his  own  private  judgments. 
His  reverence  for  the  Church  leads  him  to  exercise  in  his  indi- 
vidual capacity,  what  he  takes  to  be  her  function  in  her  col- 
lective capacity.  He  catches  w7hat  he  supposes  to  be  her 
spirit.  He  becomes,  in  consequence,  of  all  men,  the  most 
headstrong  and  self-willed.  There  must  be  some  other  escape 
than  this  from  the  evils  of  our  time ;  this  road  leads  us  into 
the  very  heart  of  them.  p> 

It  seems  to  me  that,  if  we  start  from  the  belief,-!-"  Charity 
is  the  ground  and  centre  of  the  Universe,  God  is  Charity," — 
we   restore   that  distinctness  which  our  Theology  is  said  to  » 
have  lost,   we  reconcile  it  with  the  comprehension  which  we  ' 
are  all  in  search  of.     So  long  as  we  are  busy  with  our  theories^ 
notions,  feelings  about  God — so  long  as  these  constitute  our  i 
divinity — we  must  be    vague,  we  must  be  exclusive.       One 
deduces  his  conclusions  from  the  Bible  ;  one  from  the   decrees 
of  the  Church  ;  one  from  his  individual  consciousness.       But 
the   reader   of  the  Bible  confesses  that  it   appeals  to   expe- 
rience,  and   must  in  some  way  be  tested  by  it ;  the  greatest 


8  ARTICLES  OF  FAITH. 

worshipper  of  the  Church  asks  for  a  Bible  to  support  its 
authority;  the  greatest  believer  in  his  own  consciousness 
perceives  that  there  must  be  some  means  of  connecting  it 
with  the  general  conscience  of  mankind.  Each  denounces  the 
other's  method,  none  is  satisfied  with  his  own.  {  If  Theology  is 
regarded  not  as  a  collection  of  our  theories  about  God.  but  as 
a  declaration  of  His  will  and  His  acts  towards  us,  will  it  not 
conform  more  to  what  we  find  in  the  Bible — will  it  not  more 
meet  all  the  experiences  of  individuals,  all  the  experiences  of 
our  race  r  And  to  come  directly  to  the  point  of  the  objection 
which  I  am  considering,  will  it  not  better  expound  all  the  spe- 
cial articles  which  our  own  Church,  and  the  Christian  Church 
generally,  confesses  ?     This  at  least  is  my  belief. 

I  have  tried  to  understand  those  articles  when  they  have 
been  interpreted  to  me  by  some  doctor  or  apologist  who  did 
not  start  from  this  ground,  and  I  frankly  own  I  have  failed. 
Their  meaning  as  intellectual  propositions  has  been  bewilder- 
ing to  me  ;  as  guides  to  my  own  life,  as  helps  to  my  conduct, 
they  have  been  more  bewildering  still.  But  seen  in  this  light, 
I  have  found  them  acquiring  distinctness  and  unity,  just  in  pro- 
portion as  I  became  more  aware  of  my  own  necessities  and 
perplexities,  and  of  those  from  which  my  contemporaries  are 
suffering.  They  have  brought  the  Divine  Love  and  human 
life  into  conjunction,  the  one  being  no  longer  a  barren  tenet  or 
sentiment,  the  other  a  hopeless  struggle. 

I  wish  that  I  might  be  able  to  set  them  before  some  whom 
I  know,  as  they  present  themselves  to  me.  I  do  not  think  that 
I  have  anything  rare  or  peculiar  to  tell ;  I  believe  I  have  felt 
much  as  the  people  about  me  are  feeling.  I  might  therefore 
address  myself  to  many  of  different  classes  with  a  slight  hope 
of  being  listened  to  ;  but  I  have  one  most  directly  and  promin- 
ently before  me  w*hile  I  write. 

The  articles  of  which  I  shall  speak  are  precisely  those  which 
offend    the  Unitarian ;    in    defending    them  I  shall  certainly 


UNITARIANS    OF    TWO    CLASSES.  9 

appear  a  dogmatist  to  him,  however  little  I  may  deserve  that 
name  from  those  who  regard  it  as  an  honorable  one.  Ho 
either  repudiates  these  articles  absolutely,  and  considers  that 
it  is  his  calling  to  protest  against  them  ;  or  he  repudiates  them 
as  distinct  portions  of  a  creed,  holding  that  all  the  spiritual 
essence  which  may  once  have  been  in  them,  departs  when  they 
assume  this  character.  I  differ  from  those  who  take  up  the 
last  position  quite  as  much  as  from  those  who  maintain  the 
first ;  but  I  have  points,  strong  points,  of  sympathy  with  both, 
and  I  have  profited  by  the  teaching  of  both.  I  am  not  ashamed 
to  say  that  the  vehement  denunciations  of  what  they  suppose 
to  be  the  general  faith  of  Christendom  which  I  have  heard 
from  Unitarians, — denunciations  of  it  as  cruel,  immoral,  incon- 
sistent with  any  full  and  honest  acknowledgment  of  the  Divine 
Unity,  still  more  of  the  Divine  Love, — have  been  eminently 
useful  to  me.  I  receive  them  as  blessings  from  God,  for  which 
I  ouffht  to  give  Him  continual  thanks.  I  do  not  mean,  because 
the  hearing  of  these  charges  has  set  me  upon  refuting  them ; — 
that  would  be  a  very  doubtful  advantage ;  (for  what  does  one 
gain  for  life  and  practice,  by  taking  up  the  profession  of  a  theo- 
logical special  pleader?) — but  because  great  portions  of  these 
charges  have  seemed  to  me  well  founded;  because  I  have  been 
compelled  to  confess  that  the  evidence  for  them  was  irresisti- 
ble. And  I  have  been  driven  more  and  more  to  the  conclusion, 
that  that  evidence  does  not  refer  to  some  secondary,  subordinate 
point, — which  we  may  overlook,  provided  our  greater  and 
more  personal  interests  are  secured, — or  to  some  point  of 
which  we  may  for  the  present  know  nothing,  and  be  content  to 
confess  our  ignorance  :  but  that  it  concerns  the  grounds  of 
our  personal  and  of  our  social  existence ;  that  it  does  not  touch 
those  secret  things  which  belong  to  the  Lord,  but  the  heart  of 
that  Eevelation  which  He  has  made  to  us  and  our  children.  I 
owe  it  very  much  to  these  protests  that  I  have  learnt  to  say  to 
myself:— "  Take  away  the  Love  of  God,  and  you  take  away 
1* 


10  OBLIGATIONS  TO  THEM. 

everything.  The  Bible  sets  forth  the  Revelation  of  that 
Love,  or  it  is  good  for  nothing.  The  Church  is  the  living 
Witness  and  Revelation  of  that  Love,  or  it  is  good  for 
nothing." 

I  owe  also  much  to  those  Unitarians,  who,  being  less  strong 
in  their  condemnation  of  the  thoughts  and  language  of  books 
written  by  Trinitarians,  and  avowing  a  sympathy  with  some  of 
the  accounts  which  they  have  given  of  their  own  inward  conflicts, 
nevertheless  hate  Orthodoxy,  as  such,  with  a  perfect  hatred, 
affirming  it  to  be  the  stifler  of  all  honest  convictions,  and  of 
all  moral  growth.  I  have  not  been  able  to  gainsay  many  of 
their  assertions  and  arguments.  I  cannot  say  that  I  have  not 
n  and  felt  these  effects  following  from  what  is  called  a 
secure  and  settled  profession.  I  cannot  say  that  the  events  of 
the  last  twenty  years  in  the  English  Church  do  not  convince 
me  that  it  is  God's  will  and  purpose  that  we  should  be  shaken 
in  our  ease  and  satisfaction,  and  should  be  forced  to  ask  our- 
selves what  our  standing  ground  is,  or  whether  we  have  any. 
I  cannot  dissemble  my  belief,  that  if  we  are  resting  on  any  for- 
mulas, supposing  they  are  the  best  formulas  that  were  ever 
handed  down  from  one  generation  to  another,  or  on  the  divin- 
est  book  that  was  ever  written  by  God  for  the  teaching  of 
mankind,  and  not  on  the  Living  God  Himself,  our  foundation 
will  be  found  sandy,  and  will  crumble  under  our  feet.  For 
telling  me  this,  for  giving  me  a  warning  which  I  feel  that  I 
need,  and  that  my  brethren  need,  I  thank  these  Unitarians,  and 
all  others  not  called  by  their  name,  who  have,  in  one  form  or 
another,  in  gentle  or  in  rough  language,  united  to  sound  it  in 
our  ears.  I  can  say  honestly  in  the  sight  of  God,  I  have  tried 
to  lay  it  to  heart,  though  not  as  much  as  I  might  have  done, 
or  as  I  hope  to  do.  And  now  I  wish  to  show  that  my 
gratitude  for  these  benefits  is  not  nominal  but  real,  by  telling 
the  men  of  both  these  classes  what  they  have  not  taught  me, — 


FAILURES  OF  THE  FIRST  CLASS.  11 

what  I  have  been  compelled  to  learn  in  another  school  than 
theirs. 

To  the  first,  then,  I  say : — You  have  urged  me  to  believe 
that  God  is  actually  Love.     You  have  taught  me  to  dread 
any  representation  of  Him  which  is  at  variance  with  this ;  to 
shrink  from  attributing  to  Him  any  acts  which  would  be  un- 
lovely in  man.     Well  !  and  I  find  myself  in  a  world  ruled  over 
by  this  Being,  in  which  there  are  countless  disorders :  yes,  and 
I  find  myself  adding  to  the  disorder;  one  of  the  elements  of 
it.     My  heart  and  conscience  demand  how  this  is.     I  want  to 
know, — not  for  the  sake  of  a  theory,  but  for  the  most  practical 
purposes  of  life, — I  want  to  know  how  these  disorders  may  be 
removed  out  of  the  world  and  out  of  me.  You  are,  I  am  aware, 
benevolent  men,  a  great  many  of  you  eager  for  sanitary,  social, 
political    reformation.      That  is  well,  as  far  as   you  are  con- 
cerned ;  but  is  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe  as  much  interested 
in  the  state  of  it  as  you  are  ?  Has  He  done  anything  adequate 
for  the  deliverance  of  it  from  its  plagues  :  is  He  doing  any- 
thing ?     I  have  not  found  you  able  to  answer  these  questions; 
and  I  do  not  think  other  people  find  that  you  are  able.     Men 
who  have  to  sorrow,  and  suffer,  and  work,  may  accept  your  help 
in  improving  their  outwTard  condition,  but  they  do  not  accept 
your  creed :  it  is  nothing  to  them.     Atheism  is  their  natural 
and  necessary  refuge,  if  the  only  image  of  God  presented  to 
them  is  of  One  who  allows  men  to  be  comfortable, — wTho  is 
not  angry  with  them, — who  wishes  all  to  be  happy,  but  leaves 
them  to  make  themselves  and  each  other  happy  as  well  as  they 
can.     They  can  meditate  the  world  almost  as  well  without 
such  a  Being  as  with  Him.     I  say  this,  because  it  is  true,  and 
because  the  truth  should  be  spoken.  God  forbid  that  I  should 
say  for  a  moment  that  it  is  true  for  you.     I  know  it  is  not.     I 
know  the  vision  you  have  of  God  is  consolatory  to  you;  that 
it  would  be  a  loss  to  all  of  you, — to  some,  a  quite  unspeakable 
loss, — to  be  deprived  of  it.     Not  for  the  world  would  I  rob 


12  THE  MODERN  SCHOOL. 

you  of  it,  or  of  one  iota  of  strength  and  comfort  which  you  de- 
rive from  it.  Not  for  the  world  would  I  persuade  you  that  your 
belief  in  a  God  of  infinite  Charity  is  not  a  precious  and  divine 
gift.  But,  remember  ! — infinite  Charity.  Charity  is  described 
as  bearing  all  things,  hoping  all  things,  enduring  all  things. 
Any  charity  which  is  not  of  this  character,  I  am  sure  you  would 
cast  out  of  your  scheme  of  ethics  ;  you  would  feel  it  could  not 
be  an  ideal  for  men  to  strive  after;  you  do  wish,  in  your  own 
case,  not  to  give  barren  phrases  to  your  fellows,  but  to  '  suffer 
with  your  suffering  kind.'  I  have  a  right  to  claim,  that  you 
should  not  think  more  meanly  of  the  God  whom  you  condemn 
other  sects  for  misrepresenting,  than  you  do  of  an  ordinarily 
benevolent  hero,  nay,  than  you  do  of  yourselves.  It  is  all  I 
ask  of  you  before  wre  engage  in  our  present  inquiry. 

You,  again,  who  think  that  there  is  some  important  truth  in 
the  doctrines  we  confess,  but  are  convinced  that  we  hold  the 
shell  of  it,  while  you  are  possessing,  or  at  least  seeking  for,  the 
kernel ;  and  that  no  fellowship  will  ever  exist  among  human 
beings  till  they  have  been  persuaded  to  cast  the  shell  away : 
you  who  support  this  sentiment  by  evidence,  all  too  clear  and 
authentic,  drawn  from  the  records  of  the  controversies  bctw. 
Churchmen,  and  from  the  feebleness  of  their  present  condition  ; 
3'ou  who  bid  us  always  keep  our  eyes  upon  some  good  time 
corning,  when  such  controversies  will  cease,  and  another  kind 
of  Church  will  emerge  out  of  those  which    you   tell  us  are 
crumbling  into  dust ;  you,  I  have  asked  what  the  substa; 
is  within  the  shell ;  and  the  best  answer  I  have  got  is, —  'a  cer- 
tain religious  sentiment — a  tendency,  that  is,  or  bias  or  aspira- 
tion of  the  soul  towards  something.'  And  that  is — what?  Is  it 
known  or  unknown,  real  or  fantastic,  a  Person  or  an  abstrac- 
tion ?     It  is  not  a  trifle  to  me  whether  I  know  or  not ;  the 
world  too,  is  interested  in  the  question.     We  cannot  be  told 
that  our  words  and  phrases,  are  worthless,  and  then  be  put  off 
with  other  words  and  phrases,  which  are  certainly  not  more 


THE  CHUKCII  THAT  IS  TO  BE.  13 

substantial.  You  declare  aloud  how  divided  Churches  are  :  will 
you  tell  us  what  has  prevented  them  from  being  wholly 
divided ;  what  has  kept  the  members  of  them  from  being 
always  at  war?  Has  it  been  a  religious  sentiment; — has  it 
been  a  philosophical  abstraction  ?  Are  you  afraid  to  join  with 
me  in  considering  that  question  ? 

Lastly,  you  look  for  a  better  day,  and  a  united  Church  : — so 
do  I.  But  I  want  to  know  whether  the  foundation  is  laid  on 
which  that  church  is  to  stand,  or  whether  it  is  to  be  laid  ; 
whether  the  Deliverer  and  Head  of  mankind  has  come,  or 
whether  we  are  to  look  for  another  ?  Your  speculations  have 
left  me  quite  in  the  dark  on  this  subject.  I  cannot  bear  the 
darkness.  Shall  we  try  if  we  can  grope  our  way  into  the 
light  ? 


ESSAY    II. 


ON   SIN. 


Clergymen  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that  their  congrega- 
tions understand  what  they  mean  when  they  speak  of  Sin.  I 
am  afraid  some  of  us  do  not  ourselves  quite  understand  what 
we  mean  by  it.  Perhaps,  if  we  would  attend  more  to  the 
doubts  and  objections  of  others,  they  might  assist  in  clearing 
and  deepening  our  own  thoughts. 

They  frequently  take  this  form  :  "  We  find  a  number  of 
crimes,  outward,  palpable,  interfering  with  the  existence  of  so- 
ciety ;  these  we  try  to  check  by  direct  penalties.  We  find 
that  these  crimes  may  be  traced  to  certain  habits  formed  in 
the  man,  beginning  to  be  formed  in  the  child  ;  these  we  try  to 
extirpate  by  some  moral  influences.  There  is  scope  for  infi- 
nite discussion  as  to  the  nature,  measure,  and  right  applica- 
tion, of  these  direct  penalties,  and  these  moral  influences  ;  as 
to  the  evils  which  most  demand  either.  But  scarcely  any  one 
doubts  that  both  these  methods  are  necessary  ;  that  there  are 
disorders  which  need  the  one  and  not  the  other.  It  is  differ- 
ent when  a  third  notion  is  thrust  upon  us,  one  which  we  can 
refer  to  the  head  neither  of  Legislation  nor  of  Ethics. 

(14) 


ETHICS,  LEGISLATION,  THEOLOGY.  15 

"  The  Theologian  speaks  of  Sin.  What  is  this  ?  You  say 
it  is  committed  against  God.  Does  God,  then,  want  anything 
for  His  own  use  and  honor  ?  Does  He  'crave  services  and 
sacrifices  as  due  to  Him  ?  Is  not  doing  justice  and  mercy  to 
the  fellow-creatures  among  whom  He  has  placed  us,  the  thing 
which  He  requires  and  which  pleases  Him  ?  If  not,  where 
would  you  stop  ?  Do  not  all  Heathen  notions,  all  the  most 
intolerable  schemes  of  propitiation,  all  the  most  frightful  in- 
ventions and  lies  by  which  the  conscience  of  men  has  been  de- 
filed and  their  reason  darkened,  and  from  which  crimes  against 
society  have  at  last  proceeded,  force  themselves  upon  us  at 
once  ?  What  charm  is  there  in  the  name  or  word  l  Christian- 
ity '  to  keep  them  off,  if  they  are,  as  we  know  they  are,  akin 
to  tendencies  which  exist  in  all  men,  whatever  names  they 
bear,  and  which,  for  their  sakes,  need  to  be  abated,  if  possible 
extinguished,  certainly  not  fostered  ?  But,  if  once  we  admit 
good  feeling  and  good  doing  towards  our  neighbor  to  be  the 
essence  and  fulfilment  of  God's  commandments,  why  are  not 
the  ethical  and  legal  conceptions  of  evil  sufficient  ?  What 
room  is  there  for  any  other  ?" 

Those  of  us  who  have  had  these  thoughts,  and  have  ex- 
pressed them,  have  probably  heard  answers  which  have  satis- 
fied us  very  ill.  We  have  been  told,  perhaps,  "that  the  Com- 
mandments speak  of  a  duty  towards  God  as  well  as  of  a  duty 
towards  our  neighbor ;  that  there  is  no  reason  why  He,  from 
Whom  we  receive  all  things,  should  not  demand  something  in 
return  ;  that,  apriorij  we  could  not  the  least  tell  whether  He 
would  or  not :  that  if  He  did,  it  would  be  reasonable  to  ex- 
pect that  He  would  enforce  very  heavy  punishments  upon  our 
failure — especially  if  it  might  have  been  avoided  ;  that  those 
punishments  may  be  infinite — at  all  events,  that  we  can  have 
no  reason  to  allege  why  they  should  not  be ;  that  if  we  have 
any  authority  for  supposing  they  will  be  so,  we  ought  to  do 
anything  rather  than  incur  so  tremendous  a  risk." 


16  THEOLOGICAL  CALCULATIONS. 

There  is  something  in  us  all  which  resists  these  arguments: 
I  believe  great  part  of  the  resistance  comes  from  conscience, 
not  from  self-will.  'There  is  a  horror  and  heart  shrinking  from 
the  doctrine  that  we  are  to  serve  God  because  we  are  ignorant 
of  His  nature  and  character.  There  is  a  greater  horror  and 
heart-shrinking  from  the  notion  that  we  are  to  serve  Him  be- 
cause, upon  a  fair  calculation,  it  appears  likely  that  this  course 
will  answer  better  than  the  opposite  course,  or  that  that  will 
involve  us  in  ruin.  He  who  says,  "  I  cannot  be  religious  on 
these  terms — it  is  my  religion  to  repudiate  them,"  may  not 
prize  the  Commandments  very  highly.  lie  may  look  upon 
them  merely  as  the  w^ords  of  an  old  Jewish  legislator.  But 
he  will  at  least  feel  that  this  legislator  meant  more  by  duty  to 
God  than  his  interpreters  suppose  him  to  mean,  nay,  meant 
something  wholly  and  generically  different  from  this.  He  may 
not  acknowledge  the  name  of  Christ,  or  may  attach  to  that 
name  quite  another  signification  from  that  which  we  attach  to 
it ;  but  he  will  at  least  be  sure  that  Christ  did  not  come  into 
the  world  to  tell  men  that  they  cannot  know  anything  of  their 
Father  in  Heaven ;  or  that  He  is  to  be  served  for  hire,  or 
through  dread  of  what  He  will  do  to  them. 

Most  earnestly  would  I  desire  that  each  man  should  hold 
this  conviction  fast,  that  he  should  suffer  no  arguments  of 
divines  or  of  lay  people,  however  plausible,  to  wrest  it  from 
him.  And  if  he  does  not  yet  perceive  any  reality  in  the  word 
u  iSin,"  or  in  the  thoughts  which  his  teachers  associate  with  it, 
by  all  means  let  him  not  feign  that  he  does.  For  the  sake  of 
the  sincerity  of  his  mind,  for  the  sake  of  the  truth  which  may 
come  to  him  hereafter,  let  him  keep  his  ethical  or  his  legal  doc- 
trine, if  he  really  has  some  grasp  of  it,  not  exchange  it  for  any 
that  has  a  greater  show  and  savor  of  divinity.  But  I  would 
conjure  him  also,  for  the  sake  of  the  same  sincerity,  not  to  bar 
his  soul  against  the  entrance  of  another  conviction,  if  it  should 
come  at  any  time  with  a  very  mighty  power,  because  he  is 


THE  CONSCIENCE  OF  EVIL. 


17 


afraid  that  he  may  be  receiving  some  old  tenet  of  Theology 
which  he  has  dreaded  and  hated.  [At  some  moment, — it  may 
be  one  of  weakness  and  sorrow,  it  may  also  be  when  he  is  full 
of  energy,  and  is  set  upon  a  distinct  and  decided  purpose, — he 
may  be  forced  to  feel ;  "  /  did  this  act,  i"  thought  this  thought ; 
it  was  a  wrong  act,  it  was  a  wrong  thought,  and  it  was  mine. 
The  world  around  me  took  no  account  of  it.  I  can  resolve  it 
into  no  habits  or  motives;  or  if  I  can,  the  analysis  does  not 
help  me  in  the  least.  Whatever  the  habit  was,  I  wore  the 
habit ;  whatever  the  motive  was,  I  was  the  mover."  At  such 
a  moment  there  will  rush  in  upon  him  a  multitude  of  strange 
thoughts,  of  indefinite  fears.  There  will  come  a  sense  of  Eter- 
nity, dark,  unfathomable,  hopeless,  such  as  he  fancied  he  had 
left  years  behind  him  amidst  the  pictures  of  his  nursery.  That 
Eternity  will  stand  face  to  face  with  him.  It  will  look  like 
anything  but  a  picture,  it  will  present  itself  to  him  as  the 
hardest  driest  reality.  There  will  be  no  images  of  torture  and 
death.  \"  What  matter  ivhere,  if  I  be  still  the  same  £" — this 
question  will  be  the  torture,  all  death  lies  in  that.  Yes,  bro- 
ther, such  a  death,  that  you  will  gladly  fly  from  it  to  any 
devices  which  men  have  thought  of  for  making  their  Gods  gra- 
cious, to  any  penances  which  they  have  invented  for  the  pur- 
pose of  taking  vengeance  on  themselves.  These  are  all 
natural, — oh,  how  natural ! — there  is  not  one  of  them  which 
the  coldest,  most  unimaginative  man  may  not  have  coveted  ; 
there  are  few  which,  in  certain  periods  of  confused  restless 
anguish,  he  may  not  have  believed  would  be  worth  a  trial. 
And  why  ?  Because  anything  is  better  than  the  presence  of 
this  dark  self.  I  cannot  bear  to  be  dogged  by  that,  night  and 
day;  to  feel  its  presence  when  I  am  in  company,  and  when  I 
am  alone  ;  to  hear  its  voice  whispering  to  me, — "  Whitherso- 
ever thou  goest,  I  shall  go.  Thou  wilt  part  with  all  things 
else,  but  not  with  me.     There  will  come  a  day  when  thou 


18  HORRORS  OF  IT. 

canst  wander  out  in  a  beautiful  world  no  longer,  when  thou 
must  be  at  home  with  me." 

This  vision  is  more  terrible  than  all  which  the  fancy  of  priests 
has  ever  conjured  up.  He  who  has  encountered  it,  is  begin- 
ning to  know  what  Sin  is,  as  no  words  or  definitions  can  teach 
it  him.  "When  once  he  arrives  at  the  conviction,  "  I  am  the 
tormentor, — Evil  lies  not  in  some  accidents,  but  in  me,"  be 
no  more  in  the  circle  of  outward  acts,  outward  rules,  outward 
punishments ;  he  is  no  more  in  the  circle  of  tendencies,  inclina- 
tions, habits,  and  the  discipline  which  is  appropriate  to  them. 
He  has  come  unawares  into  a  more  inward  circle, — a  very 
close,  narrow,  dismal  one,  in  which  he  cannot  rest,  out  of 
which  he  must  emerge.  And  I  am  certain  he  can  only  emerge 
out  of  it  when  he  begins  to  say,  "  I  have  sinned  against  some 
Being, — not  against  society  merely,  not  against  my  own 
nature  merely,  but  against  another  to  whom  I  was  bound." 
And  the  emancipation  will  not  be  complete  till  lie  is  able  to 
say, — giving  the  words  their  full  and  natural  meaning, — 
Father,  I  have  sinned  against  Thee." 

I  know  there  are  some  who  will  say,  "  There  is  no  occasion 
for  a  man  ever  to  be  brought  into  this  strange  sense  of  con- 
tradiction. He  need  not  be  thus  confronted  with  himself:  he 
need  not  see  a  dark  image  of  Self  behind  him,  before  him, 
above  him,  beneath  him.  Very  few  people,  in  fact,  do  ] 
through  this  experience.  Some  of  a  particular  constitution 
may.  But  how  absurd  it  is  of  them  to  make  themselves  the 
standards  for  humanity  !  How  monstrous,  that  a  few  meta- 
physicians or  fanatics  should  lay  down  the  law  for  all  the  busy 
men,  the  merchants,  tradesmen,  handicraftsmen,  who  get  through 
the  world,  and  must  get  through  it  somehow,  without  ever 
knowing  anything  of  these  torments  of  conscience,  internal 
strifes,  or  by  whatever  other  names  philosophers  or  divines 
like  to  describe  them  !" 

Very  well !  but  were  not  you  complaining — have  you  not 


NEED  A  MAN  UNDERGO  IT  ?  19 

a  right  to  complain — of  those  priestly  inventions  which  inter- 
fere so  much  with  the  peace  of  society,  which  interrupt  the 
merchants  and  handicraftsmen  in  their  employments,  which 
beget  so  many  horrors,  especially  such  dreadful  anticipations 
of  divine  punishment  and  vengeance  in  human  hearts?  Is'it 
not  your  object  to  sweep  these  away  as  fast  as  you  can,  because 
you  find  them  so  troublesome,  taking  so  many  different  forms, 
reappearing  when  you  least  expect  them,  in  periods  and  coun- 
tries whence  they  seemed  to  have  been  driven  for  ever  ?  Do 
you  not  complain  that  Christianity  gives  you  no  security,  that 
Protestantism  gives  you  no  security,  against  the  invasion  of 
superstitious  terrors,  and  against  all  the  sacerdotal  powers 
which  are  acknowledged  wherever  they  prevail  ?  Do  you  not 
say  that  they  interfere  with  the  progress  of  science,  and  that 
science  needs  an  aid  against  them,  which  neither  itself,  nor 
civil  rulers,  nor  public  opinion  can  give  ?  Would  it  not  be 
wrell,  then,  to  look  a  little  more  deeply  into  the  matter,  and 
instead  of  raving  at  certain  pernicious  effects,  to  examine  from 
what  cause  they  may  have  sprung  ? 

I  tell  you  the  cause  is  here.  That  sense  of  a  Sin  intricately, 
inseparably  interwoven  with  the  very  fibres  of  their  being,  of  a 
Sin  which  they  cannot  get  rid  of  without  destroying  themselves, 
does  haunt  those  very  men  who  you  say  take  no  account  of  it. 
This  is  not  the  idiosyncrasy  of  a  few  strange  inexplicable  tem- 
peraments. It  is  that  which  besets  us  all.  And  because  we 
domot  know  what  it  means,  and  do  not  wish  to  know,  we  are 
ready  for  all  deceits  and  impostures.  They  may  come  in  vari- 
ous shapes.  They  may  be  religious  impostures,  or  philosophi- 
cal ;  they  may  appeal  to  our  love  of  the  outward  world,  or  to 
our  craving  for  mysteries  ;  but  they  will  not  permit  us  to  be 
at  rest,  or  to  be  acquainted  with  our  own  hearts,  or  to  under- 
stand one  another.  All  you  can  boast  is,  that  preachers  of 
religion  have  not  a  monopoly  of  these  influences  in  this  time; 
that  here,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  unrestricted  competition ;  that 


20  '      METHODIST  PREACHING. 

Mormonists,  Animal  Magnetists,  Rappists,  take  their  turns 
with  us,  and  often  work  their  charms  more  effectually  than  we 
work  ours.  As  long  as  men  are  dwelling  in  twilight,  all  ghosts 
of  the  past,  all  phantoms  of  the  future,  walk  by  them  :  I  want 
tc»  know,  as  I  suppose  you  do,  how  they  can  come  out  of  the 
twilight  ?  The  passage  is  the  same,  friend,  for  them,  as  for 
you  and  me ;  we  are  not  of  different  flesh  and  blood  from 
theirs;  that  within  us  which  is  not  flesh  and  blood  is  not  more 
different,  but  more  closely  akin,  whatever  you,  in  your  philo- 
sophical or  literary  or  religious  exelusiveness,  may  think.  The 
darkness  which  is  blended  with  the  light  must,  in  some  way, 
be  shown  to  be  in  deadly  contrast  with  it, — the  opposites 
must  be  seen  one  against  the  other. 

Think  of  any  sermon  of  a  Methodist  preacher  which  roused 
the  heart  of  a  Kingswood  collier,  or  of  a  dry,  hard,  formal 
man,  or  of  a  contented,  self-righteous  boaster  of  his  religion, 
in  the  last  century.  You  will  say  the  orator  talked  of  an  infi- 
nite punishment  which  God  might  inflict  on  them  all  if  they 
continued  disobedient.  He  may  have  talked  of  that,  but  be 
would  have  talked  till  doomsday  if  he  had  not  spoken  another 
language  too,  which  interpreted  this,  and  into  which  the  con- 
science rapidly  translated  it.  He  spoke  of  an  infinite  Sin  ;  he 
spoke  of  an  infinite  Love ;  he  spoke  of  that  which  was  true 
then,  wiiatever  might  become  true  hereafter.  He  said,  "  Thou 
art  in  a  wrong  state :  hell  is  about  thee.  God  would  bring 
thee  into  a  right  state  :  He  would  save  thee  out  of  that  hell." 
The  man  believed  the  words ;  something  within  him  told  him 
they  were  true  :  and  that  for  the  first  time  he  had  heard  truth, 

n  truth,  been  himself  true.  I  cannot  tell  what  vanities  and 
confusions  might  come  to  him  afterwards  from  his  own  dreams 
or  the  crudities  of  his  teachers.  But  I  am  sure  this  was  not 
a  delusion — could  not  be.  He  had  escaped  from  the  twilight : 
he  had  seen  the  opposite  forms  of  light  and  darkness  no  longer 
miserably  confused  together.     Good  was  all  good;  evil  was 


POWEK  OF  IT  ;  CHANGE  IN  IT.  21 

all  evil :  there  was  war  in  heaven  and  earth  between  them  ;  in 
him,  even  in  him,  where  the  battle  had  been  fiercest,  the  odds 
against  the  good  greatest,  good  had  gotten  the  victory.  He 
had  a  right  to  believe  that  the  morning  stars  were  singing 
together  at  the  news  of  it;  otherwise,  why  was  there  such 
music  in  his,  the  Kingswood  collier's,  heart  ? 

If  such  processes  are  rare  in  our  days,  it  is,  I  believe,  because 
the  descendants  of  these  Methodist  preachers,  and  we  in  imita- 
tion of  them,  fancy  that  the  mere  machinery,  whether  earthly 
or  divine,  which  they  put  in  motion,  was  the  cause  of  them, 
— because  we  do  not  thoroughly  understand  or  heartily  believe 
that  there  is  that  war  of  Life  and  Death,  of  Good  and  Evil, 
now  in  every  man's  heart,  as  there  was  of  old.  Therefore, 
we  do  not  speak  straightly  and  directly  to  both.  "We  suppose 
men  are  to  be  shown  by  arguments  that  they  have  sinned,  and 
that  God  has  aright  to  punish  them.  We  do  not  say  to  them, 
"  \rou  are  under  a  law  of  love ;  you  know  you  are,  and  you 
are  fighting  with  it." 

Benevolent  men  wish  that  the  poor  should  know  more  of 
Legislation  and  Ethics  and  Economy.  I  wish  heartily  that 
they  should.  But  I  believe  that  you  will  never  bring  them  to 
that  knowledge  unless  you  can  point  them  to  the  deeper 
springs  of  humanity,  from  which  both  Ethics  and  Laws  and 
Economics  must  be  fed,  if  they  are  to  have  any  freshness  and 
life.  I  do  not  think  it  dangerous  that  any  man  should  get  any 
knowledge  of  any  subject  whatever ;  the  more  he  has  the  bet- 
ter. I  And  I  often  think,  that  what  is  sincerely  communicated 
to  hinTbf  Economics  or  Physics,  may  bring  him  sooner  to  a 
right  moral  condition, — may  startle  him  into  apprehensions 
respecting  his  own  being,  sooner, — than  insincere  artificial 
theological  teaching.  But  yet  I  cannot  help  seeing  also,  that 
Legislation,  Ethics,  Economics,  even  Physical  Science,  may 
themselves  contribute  to  the  foundation  of  superstitions,  if  the 


22  SOCIAL  FEELINGS. 

man  is  not  first  called  into  life  to  receive  them  and  to  connect 
them  with   himself.     I  am  sure,  at   all  events,  that  an  infinite 
responsibility  rests   upon  its,  not  to  be  interfering  with  other 
men,  or  to  be  checking  their  efforts,  whatever  direction  they 
may  take, — but  to   be   calling  forth,  by  that  power  which,  I 
believe,  we  possess,  if  we  will  use  it,  the  heart  and  conscience 
of  men,  so  that  being  first  able  to  see  their  Father  in    I  i 
truly,  and   themselves  in  their  true  relation  to  Him,  they  n 
afterwards  manfully  investigate,  as  I  am  sure  they  will  long  to 
do,  the  conditions  under  which  they  themselves.  His  children, 
exist,  and  the  laws  which  govern  all   II  is  works.     I  am  con- 
vinced, indeed,  that  the  n  ge  will  be,  in  some  respects,  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  the  Methodists  delivered,  even  when 
theirs   is  stripped  of  all  its  foreign  and  enfeebling   acci 
Men  are  evidently  more  alive  now  to  their  social  than  to  their 
individual  wants  ;  they  are  therefore  more  awake   to  the  evils 
which  affect  society,  than  to  those  which  affect  their  own  souls. 
To  him  who  merely,  or  mainly,  preaches   about  the  soul,  this 
Lfi   a  most  discouraging  circumstance, — to  him  whose  purpose 
is  to  awaken  men  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  a  knowledge  of 
Bin,  it  need  not  be  discouraging  at  all. 

For  if  God  presents  Himself  to  us  as  the  Father  of  a  Fami- 
ly, it  is  not   necessary  for   the  knowledge  of  linn,  that  we 
should  force  ourselves  to  forget  our  relations   to   each   other, 
and  to  think  of  ourselves  as  alone  in  the  world.     And  thowh 
!  have  admitted  and  asserted,  the  sense  of  Sin  is  atially 

the  sense  of  solitude,  isolation,  distinct  individual  asil/ilitv, 

1  do  not  know  whether  that -case,  in  all  its  painfull  and 
agony,  ever  comes  to  a  man  more  fully  than  when  he  recol- 
lects  how  he  has  broken  the  silken  cords  which  bind  him  to 
his  fellows  ;  how  he  has  made  himself  alone,  by  not  confessing 
that  he  was  a  brother,  a  son,  a  citizen.  I  believe  the  convic- 
tion of  that  Sin  may  be  brought  home  more  mightily  to  our 
generation  than  it  has  been   to   any   former  one ;  and  that  a 


REPENTANCE.  23 

time  will  come,  when  every  family  and  every  man  will  mourn 
apart,  under  a  sense  of  the  strife  and  divisions  of  the  body 
politic,  which  he  has  contributed  to  create  and  to  perpetuate. 
The  preaching,  Repent,  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  kand, 
has  always  been  the  great  instrument  of  levelling  hills  and 
exalting  valleys.  It  will  be  so  again.  The  priest  and  the 
prophet  will  confess  that  they  have  been  greater  rebels  against 
the  law  of  love  than  the  publican  and  the  harlot,  because  they 
were  sent  into  the  world  to  testify  of  a  Love  for  all,  and  a 
Kingdom  for  all,  and  they  have  been  witnesses  for  separation, 
for  exclusion,  for  themselves. 

My  Unitarian  brother !  You  believe  that,  at  least,  respect- 
ing us.  You  have  often  told  us  so.  And  how7  is  it  you  have 
no  power  to  work  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men,  and  to 
convince  them  of  God's  love,  when,  as  you  say  rightly,  we  are 
forgetting  or  denying  it  ?  How  is  it,  that  in  the  last  age  you 
were  in  sympathy  with  all  our  feeble  worldly  tone  of  mind,  and 
thought  we  were  right  in  mocking  at  spiritual  powers,  and  in 
not  proclaiming  a  Gospel  to  the  poor?  Why  did  you  talk 
just  as  we  talked,  in  sleepy  language  to  sleepy  congregations, 
of  a  God  who  was  willing  to  forgive  if  men  repented,  when 
what  they  wanted  to  know  was,  how  they  could  repent,  who 
could  give  them  repentance,  what  they  had  to  repent  of?  You 
had  a  mighty  charm  in  your  hands.  You  spoke  of  a  Father. 
Why  could  you  not  tell  men  that  He  was  seeking  them,  and 
wishing  to  make  them  true  instead  of  false  ?  You  did  not — 
you  know  you  did  not.  Why  was  it  ?  I  beseech  you,  do 
not  turn  round  and  say,  "  You  were  as  guilty  as  we."  I  have 
said  already,  "  We  were  much  more  guilty."  Every  creed 
we  professed,  every  prayer  we  uttered,  told  us  that  this  Fa- 
ther was  an  actual  Father,  actually  related  to  us  by  the  closest, 
most  intimate  bonds.  We  did  not  believe  much  of  those 
creeds  and  prayers ;  you  wished  us  to  believe  less  than  we 
did.     Thank  God,  neither  you  nor  we  could  get  rid  of  the 


24  THE  UNITARIAN  MESSAGE. 


\, 


witnesses  which  He  had  established,  or  of  the  deep  necessities 
which  corresponded  to  them.  The  earnest  preachers  of  the 
day  beat  us  both,  because  they  believed  in  a  Father,  while  we 
repeated  his  name,  and  you  argued  to  prove  that  he  was  the 
One  God. 

And  now  you  have,  many  of  you,  changed  your  language. 
You  see  that  there  is  a  spiritual  power  in  the  world ;  these 
preachers  have  proved  that  there  is.     You  point  out  power- 
fully and  skilfully,  what  dull,   drowsy  priests  we  were  who 
denied  it.     But  you  say  that  those  who  asserted  it  were  nar- 
row, that  they  are  worn  out,  that  spiritual  power  is  much 
more  widely  at  work  than  they  suppose,  that  it  is  to  be  felt 
everywhere.     Be  it  so — the  lesson  is  most  impressive  ;  we  ac- 
cept it.     But  why  are  you  still  powerless  ?  why  cannot  you 
stir  the  hearts  of  the  people  by  your  message  more  than  your 
fathers  did?     Why  must  it  be  proclaimed,  not  exactly  like 
theirs,   in  the  ears  of  comfortable  merchants  and  dowagers 
wanting  a  not  too  troublesome  religion, — but  at  least  in  the 
ears  of  those  chiefly,  who  crave  for  some   new   thing,  not  of 
those  who  are  hungering  and  thirsting  for  life?     The  secret 
of  both  failures  seems  to  me  this.      You,  of  the  older  school, 
knew  something  of  transgression  ;  almost  nothing  of  {Sin.   But 
the  transgression  was  of  a  rule  rather  than  of  a  law  ;  breaches 
of  social  etiquette  and  propriety,  at  most  uncomely  and  unkind 
habits,  seemed  to  compose  all  the  evils  you  took  account  of, 
which  did   not   appear  in  the  shape  of  crimes.     Those  who 
must  be  treated,  not  as  members  of  some  class  of  men,  but  as 
men,  have  no  ears  for  discourses  about  conventions  and  beha- 
vior; if  you  cannot  penetrate  below  these,  you  must  leave 
them  alone.     You  who  believe  in  spiritual  powers,  do  you  yet 
acknowledge  spiritual  evil  ?    Can  you  speak  to  us  as  persons  ? 
Can  you  tell  me  of  myself;  what  I  am ;  who  is  for  me,  who 
is  against  me?     I  have  not  found  that  you  can.     You  have  a 


NECESSARIES  AND    LUXURIES.  25 

religion  for  us,  I  know,  apparently  a  graceful  and  refined  one. 
It  is  a  luxury,  if  we  can  afford  it.  But  we  have  an  enemy 
who  tries  to  deprive  us  even  of  necessaries.  Unless  you  can 
teach  us  how  to  procure  them,  in  spite  of  him,  I  and  my  fellow- 
fighters  must  for  the  present  let  your  religion  alone. 
2 


ESSAY    III. 


ON  THE  EVIL  SPIRIT. 


I  suppose  if  any  of  us  met  with  a  treatise  which  professed  to 
discuss  the  Origin  of  Evil,  our  first  and  most  natural  impulse 
\yould  be,  to  throw  it  aside.  "  The  man  must  have  great 
leisure,"  we  should  say,  "  or  be  very  youthful,  who  could 
occupy  himself  with  such  a  subject  us  this.  After  six  thou- 
sand years'  experience  of  Evil,  and  almost  as  many  of  hope! 
controversy^  about  its  source,  we  may  as  well  reckon  that 
among  the  riddles  which  men  are  not  to  solve,  and  pass  to 
something  else." 

The  resolution  may  be  a  wise  one,  as  far  as  it  relates  to  dis- 
cussions philosophical  or  theological  upon  this  topic.  Possibly 
the  chief  good  they  have  done  is,  that  they  have  shown  how 
little  they  can  do ;  that  they  have  proved  how  inadequate 
school  logic  is  for  the  necessities  of  human  life.  But  if  we 
supposed,  when  we  closed  the  book,  that  we  had  done  with 
the  question  which  it  raised  and  which  it  tried  to  settle  ;  if  we 
thought  it  would  not  meet  us  again  in  the  lawT-court  and  the 

(26) 


INFLUENCE  OF  CIRCUMSTANCES.  27 

tnarket  place,  and  mix  itself,  most  inconveniently,  in  all  the 
common  business  of  the  world,' — a  little  experience  will  have 
shown  us  that  we  were  mistaken.  We  must  consider  the  ori- 
gin of  Evil,  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  We  are  debating  it 
with  ourselves,  we  are  conversing  about  it  with  others,  wre 
are  acting  on  some  conclusions  we  have  formed  about  it, 
every  day  of  our  lives.     Take  a  few  instances. 

1.  A  man  cannot  help  perceiving  that  the  climate  he  is 
living  in  has  some  influence  on  himself,  and  upon  all  who  are 
about  him.  It  is  an  influence  which  directly  affects  his  body, 
but  it  does  not  stop  there;  through  this,  it  acts  in  a  number 
of  ways  upon  his  thoughts  and  his  habits.  If  it  affects  him 
less  or  more  than  others,  the  difference  is  caused  bv  a  differ- 
ence  of  temperament ;  that  must  be  set  down  as  another  influ- 
ence which  requires  to  be  taken  account  of;  one  of  which  the 
workings  are  great,  and  in  various  directions.  Add  the  con- 
ditions of  luxury,  mediocrity,  or  poverty,  into  which  he  is 
born^and  he  is  conscious  of  a  whole  system  of  agencies  work- 
ing upon  him  from  childhood  upwards,  modifying  apparently, 
if  not  determining,  his  wishes,  conceptions,  purposes.  He  has 
not  yet  calculated  the  effect  of  association  upon  him,  even  tak- 
ing that  word  in  its  simplest,  narrowest  sense,  to  express  his 
intercourse  with  his  brothers,  sisters,  schoolfellows.  If  he 
enlarges  the  word  to  comprehend  all  that  he  has  received  from 
the  atmosphere  of  his  country  and  his  age,  he  may  become 
well  nigh  overwhelmed.  For  he  begins  to  think  what  shape 
his  moral  code  might  have  taken,  if  he  had  been  born  within 
certain  degrees  of  latitude.  He  asks  himself  whether  he  should 
not  almost  certainly  have  been  a  Eoman  Catholic,  if  his  lot 
had  been  cast  in  any  part  of  the  south  of  Europe  : — a  Hindoo 
or  a  Buddhist,  or  perhaps  something  worse,  if  he  had  grown 
up  in  some  of  the  finest  regions  of  Asia.  Without  plunging 
into  these  speculations,  there  is  the  obvious'  and  undeniable 
operation  of  those  who  have  educated  him  ;  the  operation  of 


28  EVIL   TRACED  TO  IT. 

all  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  habits,  which  had  descended 
upon  them  from  their  instructors  and  ancestors. 

These  are  but  a  few  items  in  an  enormous  calculation,  a  few 
hints  which  might  be  expanded  indefinitely.  What  is  the 
result?  As  some  evil  tendency  or  temper,  which  exists  in 
him,  forces  itself  upon  his  notice,  or  is  forced  upon  him  by  the 
criticisms  and  admonitions  of  others,  he  refers  it  to  some  of 
these  circumstances  by  which  he  is  hemmed  in.  Has  he  not  a 
right  to  do  so  ?  Can  he  not  prove  his  case  ?  That  effeminate, 
slothful  disposition — cannot  he  explain  to  himself  clearly  what 
early  indulgence,  what  ill-health,  what  inherited  morbidn 
begot  it  in  him  ?  That  gambling  fever  which  is  consuming 
him — does  he  not  know  where  it  was  caught,  who  gave  him 
the  infection?  That  loss  of  truth  in  words  and  deeds,  cannot 
he  trace  it  up  to  frauds  practised  on  him  in  the  nursery;  can- 
not he  almost  fix  on  the  hour,  the  moment,  when  one  of  them 
seemed  to  undermine  his  soul  and  make  it  false  ?  But  for 
riches,  would  he  have  been  so  hard  and  indifferent  to  oth< 
But  for  poverty  and  successive  disappointments,  would  he. 
have  been  so  sour  and  envious  ? 

In  this  way  we  reason  about  ourselves;  we  deliberately 
assign  an  origin  to  the  evil  within  as;  can  we  refuse  the  advan- 
tage of  the  same  plea  to  our  fellows  ?  Do  we  not  blush  wl 
we  tell  any  man,  "  You  ought  to  have  been  so  different.'7 
Have  not  a  thousand  influences  that  we  know  acted  upon  him 
for  evil,  which  have  not  acted  upon  us  ?  May  there  not  have 
been  tens  of  thousands  which  wTe  do  not  know  ?  Our  practi- 
cal conclusion,  if  we  are  charitable,  is,  that  we  must  make 
great  allowances  for  him;  his  circumstances  have  been,  or 
may  have  been  very  unpropitious — may  not  much  of  his 
wrong-doing  be  owing  to  these  ?  Here  we  seem  to  be  extend- 
ing a  doctrine  concerning  the  origin  of  evil  to  men  generally. 

And  if  wre  are  roused  to  exertion  respecting  ourselves  or  our 
brethren,  it  appears  as  if  we  directly  applied  this  doctrine  to 


CONCLUSION  FROM  THESE  TREMISES.  2& 

practice.  We  fly  from  old  associations,  we  bring  new  ones 
about  us ;  we  assume  that  those  who  have  erred  will  not  be 
better  unless  we  can  give  them  a  different  education,  another 
social  position,  positive  restraints  imposed  by  us,  opportuni- 
ties for  restraining  themselves,  freedom  from  some  shackles 
which  appear  to  have  operated  injuriously.  We  do  not  scru- 
ple, any  of  us,  to  say  that  there  are  forms  of  government  and 
forms  of  belief  which  we  wish  to  see  destroyed,  because  we 
suppose  individual  morality  can  scarcely  exist  under  their 
shadow. 

tjrom  these  data  it  is  not  wonderful  that  some  persons,  anx- 
ious to  set  the  world  right,  should  have  generalized  the  con- 
clusion, that  all  evil  has  its  origin  in  circumstances;  that  when 
you  make  them  good,  you  make  men  good.  It  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  they  should  strive  to  point  out  how  the  first  object  may 
be  accomplished  here  and  everywhere ;  how  the  second  is  ne- 
cessarily involved  in  it.  We  must  submit  to  be  charged  by 
them  with  great  logical  inconsistency,  for  going  with  them  so 
far,  and  yet  stopping  short  at  what  seems  to  them  the  inevit- 
able consequence. 

2.  There  is  one  great  hindrance  to  the  acknowledgment  of 
that  consequence ;  perhaps  to  some  persons  it  is  the  only  one. 
They  cannot  persuade  themselves  that  human  creatures  would 
receive  so  many  evil  impressions  from  the  surrounding  world, 
if  there  was  not  in  them  some  great  capacity  for  such  impres- 
sions. They  cannot  suppose  that  the  bad  circumstances  pro- 
duce the  susceptibility  to  which  they  appeal,  however  they 
may  increase  it.  How,  they  ask,  did  the  circumstances  be- 
come bad  ?  Perhaps  the  elements  are  good,  but  they  are  ill- 
combined.  AVhat  produced  that  bad  combination?  Who 
put  them  out  of  order  ?  Or  there  is  some  one  of  them  that 
was  bad  and  disturbed  the  rest.  That  one  must  have  become 
so,  independently  of  its  circumstances.  "  There  must,"  they 
say,  "  be  some  evil,  which  was  not  made  so  by  the  accidents 


30  CORRUPTION  OF  NATURE. 

that  invested  it;  you  will  be  involved  in  a  wearisome  circle,  an 
endless  series  of  contradictions,  if  you  do  not  admit  this.  And 
if  you  do,  is  it  not  more  reasonable,"  they  ask,  "  to  say  that  this 
evil  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  man,  that  it  is  a  corruption 
of  blood  ?  Will  not  that  account  both  for  the  growth  of  bad 
circumstances  and  for  the  reaction  of  them  upon  you,  upon  us, 
upon  all?  Confess  that  the  infection  you  speak  of  is  in  us  all, 
confess  that  wTe  are  members  of  a  depraved  race,  and  you  can 
explain  all  the  phamomena  you  take  notice  of;  on  any  other 
hypothesis  they  are  incomprehensible." 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  Evil  is  also  pregnant  with  practi- 
cal consequences;  it  never  can  become  a  mere  theory.  It 
must  lead  all  who  hold  it  to  inquire,  whether  this  corruption  is 
necessary  and  hopeless,  or  may  be  cured;  whether  the  cure 
may  come  by  the  destruction  of  the  substance  in  which  it 
dwells,  or  whether  that  may  be  reformed  :  in  either  what 

the  seat  of  the  malady  is,  how  the  amputation  may  be  effected 
or  the  new  blood  poured  in,  and  the  man  himself  survive.  The 
world's  history  is  full  of  the  most  serious  and  terrible  answers 
to  these  questions, — answers  attesting  how  real  and  radical 
the  difficulty  was  which  suggested  them.  "  The  disease  is  in 
my  body,  this  flesh,  this  accursed  matter ;" — here  was  one 
often-repeated,  never-exhausted  reply  ;  "  the  flesh  must  be  de- 
stroyed; till  it  is'destroyed,  I  can  never  be  better."  All  the 
macerations  and  tortures  of  Indian  devotees  had  this  justif 
tion.  "  No,  it  is  not  there  ;  it  is  in  the  soul  that  you  are  cor- 
rupted and  fallen  ;  the  body  is  but  the  tool  and  handmaid  of 
its  offences ;" — that  was  another,  seemingly  a  more  hopeful 
conclusion.  And  this  soul  must  try  to  recover  itself,  must  seek 
again  the  high  and  glorious  position  which  was  once  its  own. 
By  wTh at  ladder  ?  "  It  must  think  high  thoughts  of  itself;  it 
must  not  allow  itself  to  be  crushed  and  overpowered  by  low 
bestial  instincts,  it  must  refuse  to  be  degraded  by  the  mere 
animals  in  the  form  of  men,  among  whom  it  dwells."     This 


STATE  OF  THE  DISEASE.  31 

was  one  prescription.  "  Ah,  no  !"  said  the  mystic,  after  bitter 
trial  of  that  method ;  "  it  must  not  rise,  but  sink  ;  the  soul 
must  desire  annihilation  for  itself;  till  it  dies,  it  will  never 
know  what  life  is." 

These  conclusions,  we  might  fancy,  affected  only  a  few  indi- 
viduals. Oh  no  !  the  whole  society  in  which  they  are  found,  is 
colored  and  shaped  by  them.  I  do  not  deny  that  there  may 
come  a  time  when  they  may  lose  their  power,  when  the  large 
mass  of  notions  and  practices  which  they  have  created  through 
a  series  of  ages  may  begin  to  upheave,  when  a  general  unbe- 
lief may  take  the  place  of  an  all-embracing  credulity.  But  out 
of  that  unbelief  you  will  see  forms  arising  which  will  prove 
that  the  old  notions  are  not  dead  ;  that  they  cannot  die.  They 
are  about  you  while  you  are  despising  them;  they  are 
within  you  while  you  are  denying  them ;  if  you  can  find  no 
clue  to  them,  no  explanation  of  them,  they  will  still  darken 
your  hearts  and  the  face  of  the  whole  universe. 

3.  This  is  equally  true,  I  believe,  of  another,  an  older,  we 
may  think  quite  an  obsolete,  method  of  accounting  for  the  ex- 
istence of  Evil.  The  belief  in  Evil  Spirits,  in  Powers  of  Dark- 
ness, to  which  the  bodies  and  spirits  of  men  are  subject,  which 
haunt  particular  places,  which  hold  their  assemblies  at  certain 
times,  which  claim  certain  men  as  their  lieges,  from  whose  as- 
saults none  are  free  :  this  belief  we  may  often  have  been 
inclined  to  look  upon  as  the  most  degrading  and  despicable  of 
all,  from  which  a  sounder  knowledge  of  physics  and  of  the 
freaks  and  capacities  of  the  human  imagination,  has  delivered 
us.  Are  we  sure  that  the  deliverance  has  been  effected  ?  Are 
we  sure  that  fears  of  an  invisible  world, — of  a  world  not 
to  come,  but  about  us, — are  extinct,  or  that  they  may  not  rush 
in  with  great  force  upon  rich  and  luxurious  people,  as  much 
as  upon  the  poorest  and  the  least  instructed  ?  Are  we  sure  that 
they  may  not  press  the  discoveries  of  physical  science,  and  the 
possibilities  of  the  vast  undiscovered  regions  above  and  be- 


32  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS. 

neath  to  which  it  points  us,  into  their  service  ?  Are  we  sure 
that  all  our  discoveries,  or  supposed  discoveries,  respecting 
the  spiritual  world  within  us,  may  not  be  equally  appealed  to 
in  confirmation  of  a  new  demoniac  system?  Are  we  sure  that 
the  very  enlightenment,  which  says  it  has  ascertained  Christian 
stories  to  be  legends,  will  not  be  enlisted  on  the  same  side,  be- 
cause if  we  will  only  believe  these  facts,  it  will  be  so  easy  to 
show  how  those  falsities  may  have  originated  9 

And  why  is  this  belief  at  least  as  potent  as  either  of  the 
others,  often  mixing  with  thern  and  giving  them  a  new  charac- 
ter ?  Because  there  is  in  men  a  sense  of  bondage  to  some 
power  which  they  feel  that  they  should  resist  and  cannot. 
Because  that  feeling  of  the  "  ought,"  and  the  "  cannot,"  is 
what  forces,  not  upon  scholars,  but  upon  the  poorest  men,  the 
question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  bids  them  seek  some 
solution  of  it.  Has  not  every  one  wondered  that  the  deepest 
problem  in  metaphysics,  the  one  which  so  many  professional 
metaphysicians  relinquish  as  desperate,  that  respecting  which 
divines  cry  out  in  pulpits,  "  Ask  nothing,  it  is  so  hard  ;  there 
is  some  truth  in  each  view  of  it," — should  exercise  and  tor- 
ment peasants  in  ten  thousand  ways ;  that  they  should  have 
listened,  as  they  did  when  Covenanters  and  Puritans  were 
preaching,  to  the  most  elaborate  as  well  as  the  most  startling 
expositions  of  it ;  that  if  they  cannot  have  the  knot  untied  for 
them,  they  always  find  some  intelligible  superstition  wherewith 
to  cut  it  ?  Oh !  let  us  give  over  our  miserable  notion  that 
poor  men  only  want  teaching  about  things  on  the  surface,  or 
will  ever  be  satisfied  with  such  teaching !  They  are  groping 
about  the  roots  of  things,  whether  we  know  it  or  not.  You 
must  meet  them  in  their  underground  search,  and  show  them 
the  way  into  daylight,  if  you  want  true  and  brave  citizens,  nut 
^community  of  dupes  and  quacks.  You  may  talk  against 
aevilry  as  you  like;  you  will  not  get  rid  of  it  unless  you  can 
tell  human  beings  whence  comes  that  sense  of  a  tyranny  over 


THEOLOGY  IN  RELATION  TO  IT-  33 

their  own  very  selves,  which  they  express  in  a  thousand  forms 
of  speech,  which  excites  them  to  the  greatest,  often  the  most 
profitless,  indignation  against  the  arrangements  of  this  world, 
which  tempts  them  to  people  it  and  heaven  also,  with  objects 
of  terror  and  despair. 

Here  then  are  three  schemes  of  the  universe,  all  developed 
out  of  the  observation  of  facts,  or,  if  you  like  that  form  of 
speech  better,  out  of  the  consciousness  of  men,  all  leading  to 
serious  results  affecting  our  well-being  in  this  as  well  as  in 
other  periods  of  history.  Each  has  given  birth  to  theories  of 
divinity,  as  well  as  to  a  very  complicated  anthropology.  They 
show  no  symptoms  of  reconciliation ;  yet  they  exist  side  by  side, 
and  gather  new  votaries  from  various  quarters,  as  well  as  new 
confirmation  from  each  of  these  votaries.  Shall  we  ask  what 
Christian  Theology,  not  according  to  any  new  conception  of 
it,  but  according  to  the  statements  which  have  embodied  them- 
selves in  creeds,  and  are  most  open  to  the  censures  of  modern 
refinement,  says  of  them  ? 

1.  First,  then, — -there  is  no  disguising  it, — the  assertion 
stands  broad  and  patent  in  the  four  Gospels,  construed  accord- 
ing to  any  ordinary  rules  of  language  ; — the  acknowledgment 
of  (an  Evil  Spirit  is  characteristic  of  Christianity.  *  I  do  not,  of 
course,  mean,  that  the  dread  of  such  a  Spirit  did  not  exist  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  before  the  Incarnation  of  our  Lord. 
Powers  which  are  plotting  mischief  against  men,  enter  into 
every  heathen  religion;  gradually  those  religions  came  to  sig- 
nify little  else  than  the  conciliation  of  such  powers ;  in  the 
highest  civilization  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when  unbelief  in  the 
Divine  had  become  habitual,  the  fear  of  the  devilish  expressed 
itself  in  a  devotion  to  magic  and  prophecy,  which  was  as  real 
as  the  devotion* of  frivolous  people  can  be.  The  Jew  was 
taught,  throughout  all  his  history,  that  there  were  enemie«| 
within  as  well  as  without,  who  were  contending  against  him. 
lie  realized   the  conviction   in    his  prayers  to  the  God  of  his 


34  THE  EVIL  SPIIU1  THE  GOSPELS. 

fathers.  lie  could  not  believe  that  Philistines  or  Moabites 
were  tormenting  him  in  his  chamber.  He  learnt  that  the 
secret  impalpable  enemies  there,  were  his  country's  tyrants, 
even  more  than  the  visible  ones.  The  Pharisee  of  later  times, 
with  no  feeling  for  his  country  except  as  it  reflected  his  vanity 
or  ministered  to  his  contempt  of  others,  wrapt  up  in  the  desire 
to  get  what  he  could  for  himself  in  this  world  and  the  next, 
had  wrought  out  of  the  hints  which  the  living  rnen  of  former 
days  supplied  him,  a  very  extensive  Demonology.  Beelzebub, 
the  prince  of  the  devils,  occupied  a  large  place  in  his  theory  ; 
he  could  always  be  resorted  to  for  the  explanation  of  any  more 
than  usually  startling  difficulty.  And  this  being  was  uncon- 
sciously becoming  the  object  of  Jewish  worship.  All  his  fea- 
tures were  gradually  transferred  by  the  imagination  of  the  self- 
seeker  to  the  God  of  Abraham. 

When  then  I  speak  of  the  belief  in  the  existence  and  j 
ence  of  an  Evil  Spirit  as  characteristic  of  the  Gospels,  I  mean 
this  : — that  in  them  first  the  idea  of  a  spirit  directly  and  abso- 
lutely opposed  t<»   the  Father  of  Lights,  to  the   God  of 
lute  goodness  and  love,  bursts  full  upon  us.     There  first  we 
are  taught,  that  it  is  not  merely  something  in  peculiarly  i 
men  which  is  contending  against  the  good  and  the  true ;    no, 
nor  something  in  all  men  :  that  God  has  an   antagonist,  and 
that  all  men,  bad  or  good,  have  the  same.  ;  There,  first,  this 
antagonist   presents  himself  to  us,  altogether  as  a  spirit,   with 
no  visible  shape  or  clothing  whatsoever;  there  first  the  belief 
that  Evil  may  t>e  a  rival  creator,  or  entitled  to  some  worship, 
— a  belief,   which  every  reformer  in  the  old  world  had  spent 
his  life  in  struggling  with, — is  utterly  put  to  flight ;  the  vision 
of  a  mere  destrover,  a  subverter  of  order,  who  is  seeking  con- 
tinually  to  make  us  disbelieve  in  the  Creator,  to  forsake  the 
j|rder  that  we  are  in,  takes  place  of  every  other.     With  tbi 
cliscoveries   another  is  always  connected  ;  that  this   tempter 
speaks  to  me,  to  myself,  to  the  will ;  that  over  that  he  has 


RELATION  TO  NATURAL  CORRUPTION.  35 

established  his  tyranny ;  that  there  his  chains  must  be  broken  ; 
but  that  all  things  in  nature,  with  the  soul  and  the  body,  have 
partaken,  and  do  partake,  of  the  slavery  to  which  the  man 
himself  has  submitted. 

I  simply  state  these  propositions ;  I  am  not  going  to  defend 
them.  If  they  cannot  defend  themselves,  by  the  light  which 
they  throw  on  the  anticipations  and  difficulties  of  the  human 
spirit,  by  the  hint  of  deliverance  which  they  offer  it,  by  the 
horrible  dreams  which  they  scatter,  my  arguments  would  be 
worth  nothing.  But  I  am  bound  to  show  how  this  part  of  the 
divine  revelation  affects  those  two  other  hypotheses  of  which 
I  spoke  first. 

2.  That  there  is  a  pravity  or  depravity  in  every  man,  and 
that  this  pravity  or  depravity  is  felt  through  his  whole  nature 
the  Gospel  does  not  assert  as  a  principle  of  Theology,  but  con 
cedes  as  an  undoubted  and   ascertained  fact  of  experience 
which  no  one  who  contemplates  man  or  the  universe  can  gain 
say.  \  What  it  does  theologically  with  reference  to  that  expe 
rience  is  this  ; — as  it  confesses  an  Evil  Spirit  whose  assaults 
are  directed  against  the  Will  in  man,  it  forbids  us  ever  to  look 
upon  any  disease  of  our  nature  as  the  ultimate  cause  of  trans- 
gression.    The  horrible  notion,  which  has  haunted  moralists, 
divines,  and  practical  men,  that  pravity  is  the  law  of  our  being 
and  not  the  perpetual  tendency  to  struggle  against  the  law  of 
our  being,  it  discards  and    anathematises.     By  setting  forth 
the  Spirit  of  selfishness  as  the  enemy  of  man,   it  explains,  in 
perfect  coincidence  with  our  experience,  wherein  this  pravity 
consists ;  that  it  is  the  inclination  of  every  man  to  set  up  him- 
self, to  become  his  own  law  and  his  own  centre,  and  so  to 
throw  all  society  into  discord  and  disorder.     It  thus  explains 
the  conviction  of  the  devotee  and  the  mystic  that  the  body 
must  die,  and  that  the  soul  must  die.     Self  being  the  plague 
of  man,  in  some  most  wonderful  sense  he  must  die,  that  he  may 
be  delivered  from  his  pravity.     And  yet  neither  body  nor  soul 


36  RELATION   TO  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

can  be  in  itself  evil.  Each  is  in  bondage  to  some  evil  power. 
If  there  is  a  God  of  Order  mightier  that  the  Destroyer, 
body  and  soul  must  be  capable  of  redemption  and  restora- 
tion. 

3.  And  thus  this  Theology  eomes  in  contact  with  that  wide- 
spread and  most  plausible  creed,  which  attributes  all  evil  to 
circumstances.  Every  one  of  the  facts  from  which  this  creed 
is  deduced,  it  fully  admits.  Every  husband,  father,  ruler, 
brings  his  own  quota  of  selfishness  to  swell  the  general  stock. 
It  accumulates  from  age  to  age.  The  sins  of  the  fathers  are 
visited  upon  the  children,  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation. 
The  idolatrous  habit,  the  sensual  habit,  goes  on  propagating 
itself,  so  that  ihe  cry, 

,<Etas  parentum,  pejor  avis,  tulit 

Xos  nequiores,  mox  daturo 

I'rogeniem  vitiosiorem, 

is  the  ordinary  complaint  of  intelligent  observers.  And 
because  it  is  so,  the  prudential  alleviations  of  the  evil  to  which, 
as  I  admitted,  we  all  do  and  must  resort,  have  the  highest 
justification  in  principle.  Take  away  from  a  man  all  the  in- 
jurious influences  that  it  is  possible  to  take  away ;  not  because 
circumstances  are  his  rightful  masters,  but  because  these  influ- 
ences lead  him  to  think  that  they  are,  and  to  act  as  if  they 
were.  Take  them  away  that  he  may  know  what  has  robbed 
him  of  his  freedom,  whose  yoke  needs  to  be  broken  if  he  is  not 
always  to  be  a  slave.  And  since  the  man  soon  discovers, — 
since  his  worship  of  circumstances  is  itself  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  discovery, — that  the  tyranny  which  is  over  him  is  a 
tyranny  over  his  whole  race,  we  shall  never  give  him  any  clear 
ness  of  mind,  or  any  hope,  unless  we  can  tell  him  that  the  Spirit 
of  Selfishness  is  the  common  enemy,  and  that  he  has  been 
overcome. 

I  cannot  be  ignorant,  that  in  this  Essay  I  have  encounter! 


DEPRAVITY  MADE  A  LAW.  37 

one  of  the  most  deeply  rooted  aversions  in  the  minds  of  Uni- 
tarians. They  have  always  regarded  the  doctrine  of  the  exist- 
ence and  personality  ol  the  Devil  as  the  least  tenable  figment 
of  orthodox  theology.  They  scarcely  think  that  any  one  who 
professes  to  hold  it,  in  the  present  day,  can  be  sincere.  They 
are  very  tolerant,  can  give  us  credit  for  much  invincible  igno- 
rance ;  but  they  do  not  believe  that  any  man  in  the  nineteenth 
century  is  quite  fool  enough  for  that. 

I  perfectly  understand  this  feeling.  I  know  that  it  is  very 
widely  diffused.  I  shrink  with  instinctive  cowardice  from  say- 
ing, "  I  maintain  this  dogma."  I  should  like  exceedingly  to 
hide  it  under  some  respectable  periphrasis.  I  will  tell  you  why 
I  cannot.  I  believe  that  some  of  what  seem  to  me  the  hardest, 
most  mischevious  theories  of  our  modern  popular  divinity, — 
those  which  shock  the  moral  sense  and  reason  of  men  most, 
those  which  most  undermine  the  belief  in  God's  infinite  charity, 
—arise  from  this  timidity,  of  which  I  am  conscious  myself,  and 
which  I  see  in  my  brethren.  When  men  in  the  old  time  would 
have  said  bravely,  meaning  what  they  said,  "  We  are  engaged 
in  a  warfare  with  an  Evil  Spirit,  he  is  trying  to  separate  us 
from  God,  to  make  us  hate  our  brethren,"  ive  talk  of  the  deprav- 
ity of  our  nature,  of  the  evil  we  have  inherited  from  Adam. 
Now  that  every  child  of  Adam  has  this  infection  of  nature,  I 
most  entirely  and  inwardly  believe.  But  to  say  that  this  infec- 
tion forces  us  to  commit  sin,  is  to  say  what  the  Jews  of  old 
said, — what  the  Prophets  denounced  as  the  most  flagrant 
denial  of  God, —  We  are  delivered  to  do  all  these  abominations. 
And  it  is  the  very  close  approximation  which  we  make  in  some 
of  our  popular  statements  to  this  detestable  heresy,  which  has 
called  forth  an  indignant  and  a  righteous  protest  from  many 
classes  of  our  countrymen,  the  Unitarians  being  in  some  sort 
the  spokesmen  for  the  rest.  When  we  try  to  avoid  this  cen- 
sure, it  is  by  the  very  feeble  and  pusillanimous  course  of  introduc- 
ing modifications  into  the  broad  phrases  with  which  we  started, 


38  EQUIVOCATIONS. 

modifications  that  make  them  mean  almost  nothing.  We  main- 
tain the  "  absolute,  universal,  all  pervading  depravity"  of 
human  nature;  but  then  there  are  u  beautiful  relics  of  the 
divine  image,"  "  fallen  columns,"  &c. ; — pretty  metaphors,  no 
doubt ;  but  who  wants  metaphors  on  a  subject  of  such  solemn 
and  personal  interest  ?  Who  can  bear  them  when  they  reduce 
assertions,  which  we  were  told  had  the  most  profound  signifi- 
cation, into  mere  nonentities  ? 

What  is  pravity  or  depravity — affix  to  it  the  epithets  univer- 
sal, absolute,  or  any  you  please — but  an  inclination  to  some- 
thing which  is  not  right,  an  inclination  to  turn  away  from  that 
which  is  right,  that  which  is  the  true  and  proper  state  of  him 
who  has  the  inclination  ?  What  is  it  that  experiences  the  inclina- 
tion ?  What  is  it  that  provokes  the  inclination?  I  believe  it  is  the 
spirit  within  me  which  feels  the  inclination  :  I  believe  it  is  a  Spirit 
speaking  to  my  spirit,  who  stirs  up  the  inclination.  That  old  way 
of  stating  the  case  ex^laius  the  facts,  and  commends  itself  to  my 
reason.  I  cannot  find  any  other  which  <Joes  not  conceal  some 
facts,  and  does  not  outrage  my  reason.  And  of  this  I  am 
sure,  that  when  I  have  courage  to  use  this  language,  as  the 
expression  of  a  truth  which  concerns  me  and  every  man,  the 
whole  battle  of  life  becomes  infinitely  more  serious  to  me,  and 
yet  more  hopeful;  because  I  cannot  believe  in  a  Spirit  which 
is  tempting  me  into  falsehood  and  evil,  without  believing  that 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  that  I  am  bound  to  Him,  and  that  He  is 
attracting  me  to  truth  and  goodness. 

And  thus  another  very  unsightly,  and  to  me  quite  porten- 
tous, imagination  of  modern  divines,  is  shown  to  be  utterly  in- 
consistent with  the  faith  which  we  and  our  forefathers  have 
professed.  There  is  said  to  have  been  a  war  in  the  Divine 
mind  between  Justice  and  Mercy.  We  are  told  that  a  great 
scheme  was  necessary  to  bring  these  qualities  into  reconcilia- 
tion. AY  hen  I  attribute  this  doctrine  to  modern  divines,  I  do 
not  affirm  that  there  may  not  be  very  frequent  traces  of  it  in 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  OPPOSED.  39 

the    argumentative   discourses   of  old   divines ;    but   I   mean 
that,   with  the  strong  belief  which  they   had,  that  an  Evil 
Spirit  was  drawing  them  away  both  from  mercy  and  righteous- 
ness— was  tempting  them  to  be  both  unjust  and  hard-hearted — 
they  had  a  practical  witness  against  any  notion  of  this  kind, 
which  we  have  lost,  or  are  losing.     They  could  not  but  feel 
that  to  be  in  a  healthful  moral  state,  they  must  be  both  just 
and  merciful;  that  there  must  be  a  perfect  unity  and  harmony 
between  these  qualities  :   that  whatever  puts  them  in  seeming 
division,  comes  from   the  Evil   Spirit ;   that  it  is  treason  to 
ascribe  to  the  archetypal  mind  that  which  destroys  the  purity 
of  the  image.     The  God  who  wTas  to  deliver  them  from  this 
strife,  could  not  Himself  be  the  subject  of  it.     I  believe,  then, 
that  the  change  which  the  Unitarians  perceive  in  us,  and  which 
they  consider  the  blessed  effect  of  civilization  and  progress 
upon  minds  naturally  averse  from  either,  has  introduced  dark- 
ness into  our  views  of  God,  feebleness  into  our  struggles  for 
good  as  men.      As  soon  as  we  return  to  the  practical  faith  of 
the  old  teachers,  we  shall  fling  their  theories  and  our  own  to 
the  winds  when  they  interfere  with  the  absolute  righteousness 
and  love  of  God ;   we  shall  know  that  there  must  be  an  All- 
Good  on  the  one  side,  or  that  we  shall  be  at  the  mercy  of  the 
All-Evil  on  the  other. 

And  now,  having  applied  this  principle  to  our  own  condem- 
nation, I  have  a  right  to  turn  round  upon  the  Unitarian,  and 
ask  him  whether  the  same  causes  are  not  at  work  upon  him 
as  upon  us.  I  complained  in  my  first  Essay  that  the  Unita- 
rians of  the  last  century  substituted  a  mere  amiable,  good-na- 
tured Being,  for  a  God  of  perfect  Charity.  I  referred  in  the 
last  to  their  superficial  notions  respecting  Sin.  I  said  that 
they  could  not  tell  us  anything  about  the  actual  conflict  of 
life;  that  the  deepest  wants  of  which  human  beings  are  con- 
scious were  unknown  to  tbem;  that  they  could  only  teach  us 
to  preserve  quietness  and  propriety,  when  there  is  little  to 


40  SPIRITUAL    CONFLICTS. 

ruffle  the  air  or  the  sea.  Is  not  that  refinement  whieh  will  not 
face  the  fact  of  an  Evil  Spirit— the  scorn  of  such  a  belief  as 
vulvar — at  the  root  of  a  weakness  which  is  alienating  not 
merely  other  men,  but  the  youthful  and  earnest  members  of 
their  own  sect,  from  them  ? 

For  these  younger  men,  I  know,  do  confess  the  reality  of 
spiritual  conflicts.  Bunyan's  u  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  they  re- 
gard as  a  book  of  great  significance.  They  have  no  doubt 
that  Christian  must,  in  some  sense,  fight  with  Apollyori.  "And 
who,"  they  ask,  "  can  object  to  an  allegory  which  clothes  so 
much  of  real  experience  in  a  robe  of  fantasy?  Of  course,'1 
they  continue,  "  you  would  not  take  the  whole  of  that  story 
for  gospel,  would  you  ?  And  if  we  are  quite  willing  to  take 
what  is  universal  in  it  apart  from  its  old  Hebrew  drapery, 
what  more  do  you  want  ?  AVe  allow  there  are  abysses  and 
eternities,  with  which  men  have  to  do. — valleys  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  if  you  like  that  language.  When  you  speak  of  the 
Devil,  we  suppose  you  mean  that,  or  a  conceit  of  your  own, 
or  a  dream  of  the  past." 

One  word,  dear  friends,  only  one  word,  just  that  we  may 
understand  each  other.  If  you  do  maintain  the  universal 
truth  which  lies  in  that  story  of  Apollyon,  I  am  thoroughly 
content :  let  all  the  outsides  pass  for  what  they  are  worth  ; 
let  them  be  acknowledged  as  the  mere  dress  suitable  to  a  story 
— not  to  a  fact;  to  the  seventeenth  century,  not  to  the  nine- 
teenth. But  mark,  it  is  the  outside  which  I  give  up;  to  the 
inside  I  hold  fast.  I  am  very  sorry  to  say,  that  these  eterni- 
ties and  abysses  of  yours  look  to  me  very  like  outsides,  mere 
drapery;  the  fashionable  dialect  of  a  certain^not  very  earn' 
rather  fantastic,  period.  The  dress  of  the  old  people  being 
stripped  off,  as  we  are  agreed  it  shall  be,  there  remains — 
what  ?  The  history  of  some  mental  process,  no  doubt ; — but 
the  nature  of  the  process  ?  Is  it  a  shadow-fight  ?  Is  it  a  game 
of  blacks  and  whites,  the  same  hand  moving  both?     These 


SUBSTANCE    AND  DRAPERY.  41 

are  questions  of  some  importance  to  the  sincerity  of  our  acts 
and  thoughts.  I  tell  you  plainly  you  have  not  resolved  them, 
as  I  have  a  right  to  demand,  on  my  own  behalf  and  on  behalf 
of  my  kind,  that  they  should  be  resolved.  And  though  I 
would  not  for  the  world  that  you  should  anticipate  by  one 
hour  the  decision  of  your  own  consciences  upon  them  ;  though 
I  honor  you  for  not  adopting  phrases  of  ours,  or  of  the  Bible, 
which  do  not  express  something  substantial  to  you ;  yet  I 
cannot  conceal  my  conviction,  the  result  of  my  own  experi- 
ence, that  your  minds  will  be  in  a  simpler,  healthier  state,  that 
you  will  win  a  victory  over  some  of  the  most  plausible  conven- 
tionalisms of  this  age,  that  you  will  grasp  the  truth  you  have 
more  firmly,  and  be  readier  to  receive  any  you  have  not  yet 
apprehended,  when  you  have  courage  to  say,  "  We  do  verily 
believe  that  we  have  a  world,  and  a  flesh,  and  a  Devil,  to 
fight  with." 

And  before  you  believe  it,  or  know  that  you  do,  I  shall 
claim  you  as  men  who  are  actually  engaged  in  this  struggle, 
and  I  shall  go  on  to  show,  that  in  your  heart,  as  much  as  in 
mine,  there  is  a  witness  for  righteousness  and  truth,  which 
world,  and  flesh,  and  Devil,  have  been  unable  to  silence. 


ESSAY    IV. 


ON  THE  SENSE  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS  IN  MEN,  AND  THEIR 
DISCOVERY  OF  A  REDEEMER. 


Every  thoughtful  reader  of  the  book  of  Job  must  have 
been  struck  by  two  characteristics  of  it,  which  seem,  at  first 
sight,  altogether  inconsistent.  The  suffering  man  has  the  most 
intense  personal  sense  of  his  own  evil.  He  makes  also  the 
most  vehement,  repeated,  passionate,  protestations  of  his  own 
righteousness.  It  cannot  be  pretended  that  he  defends  his 
innocence  as  far  as  men  are  concerned,  but  that  he  confesses 
himself  guilty  in  the  sight  of  God.  On  the  contrary,  he  ap- 
peals again  and  again  from  rrren  to  God.  He  calls  for 
His  judgment.  He  longs  to  go  and  plead  before  Him.  There 
would  have  been  no  need  of  clearing  himself  before  a  human 
tribunal.  His  friends  do  not,  as  it  has  been  customary  to  say, 
attack  him.  They  try,  in  their  way,  to  console  him.  They 
are  as  much  astonished  at  the  vehemence  of  his  self-accusa- 
tions as  they  are  shocked  at  his  self  righteousness.  They  are 
quite  convinced  that  God  is  ready  to  forgive  those  who  make 
their  prayer  to  Him.     That  is  what  they  would  do,  if  they 

(42) 


JOB  AND    HIS  FRIENDS.  43 

had  fallen  into  Job's  calamities.  The  ancients,  who  were 
much  wiser  than  he  or  they,  have  assured  them  that  it  is  the 
right  course.  Why  does  not  the  stricken  man  take  it?  Why 
does  he  indulge  in  such  dreadful  wailiDgs,  which  must  be  offen- 
sive to  the  Judge  who  has  afflicted  him?  Above  all,  how 
dares  he  talk,  as  if  a  man  might  be  just  before  God  ?  itow 
could  he,  who  complained  that  he  possessed  the  sins  of  his 
youth,  nevertheless  declare,  that  there  was  a  purity  and  a 
truth  in  him,  which  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts  would  at  last 
acknowledge  ?  What  did  this  contradiction  mean  ?  How 
could  he  justify  it  against  all  their  precedents  and  arguments? 
He  could  not  justify  it  at  all.  The  contradiction  was  there. 
He  felt  it,  he  uttered  it,  he  found  in  it  the  secret  of  his  anguish. 
He  could  only  tell  his  friends  :  "  Your  precedents  and  your 
arguments  do  not  clear  it  away  in  the  least.  I  knew  them 
all  before.  I  could  have  poured  them  out  upon  you  if  you 
had  been  in  my  case.  But  when  one  is  brought  face  to  face 
with  suffering,  they  prove  to  be  mere  wind.  These  words  of 
yours  buzz  about  me,  torment  me,  sometimes  leave  their  stings 
in  me,  but  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  me.  They  do  not 
show  me  where  I  am  wrong  and  where  I  am  right.  I  am  be- 
fore a  Judge  who  does  not  appear  to  recognise  your  maxims 
and  modes  of  procedure.  Oh  !  that  I  might  order  my  cause 
before  Him  !"  Nor  was  it  only  the  self-righteousness  of  Job 
which  shocked  Eliphaz,  and  Bildad,  and  Zophar.  Their  theory 
of  the  nature  of  pain  wxas  also  thoroughly  outraged  by  his  lan- 
guage. I  do  not  see  any  proof  that  they  thought  it  merely  a 
judgment  from  God  for  his  transgressions.  They  would  have 
been  quite  willing  to  call  it,  as  we  do,  a  merciful  visitation. 
What  offends  them  is,  that  Job  groans  under  it  as  if  it  were 
an  evil,  that  he  seems  to  speak  of  it  as  if  it  came  from  an  ene- 
my. How  can  this  be  ?  Did  not  God  send  it  ?  Is  not  all  this 
suffering  permitted,  even  ordained,  by  Him  1     What  possible 


44  HIS  PROTEST  AGAINST  SUFFERING. 

right  can  a  poor  creature,  a  worm  of  the  earth,  have  to  remon- 
strate and  complain  that  anything  is  amiss? 

Again  it  is  clear  that  the  friends  have  the  advantage.  Job 
cannot  at  all  explain  how  it  is  that  pain  should  seem  to  him  so 
very  intolerable,  and  yet  that  it  should  be  from  God.  It  is 
the  secret  he  wants  to  discover.  But  the  demands  for  submis- 
sion which  his  friends  make  upon  him  are  not  the  least  helps 
to  the  discovery.  He  cannot  satisfy  these  demands:  he  can- 
not do  what  they  tell  him  to  do.  He  must  and  will  cry  out. 
He  is  sure  that  all  is  not  right,  let  them  pretend  to  think  so, 
as  much  as  they  will.  This  pain,  however  it  may  have  come 
to  him,  is  an  evil.  No  one  shall  force  him  to  belie  his  con- 
science by  saying  that  it  is  a  good. 

It  does  not  appear  from  the  story  that  in  either  of  tin 
points,  Job  grows  into  more  consent  with  their  opinion,  as  his 
discipline   becomes  more  severe  and  his  experience  greater. 
His  confidence  that  he  has  a  righteous]  a  real  substantial 

righteousness,  which  no  one  shall  remove  from  him,  which  he 
will  hold  fast  and  not  let  go,  waxes  stronger  as  his  pail*  be- 
comes bitterer  and  more  habitual.  There  are  great  alterna- 
tions of  feeling.  The  deepest  acknowledgments  of  sin  come 
forth  from  his  heart.  But  he  speaks  as  if  his  righteousn 
were  deeper  and  more  grounded  than  that.  Sin  cleaves  very 
close  to  him  ;  it  seems  as  if  it  were  part  of  himself,  almost  as 
if  it  were  himself.  But  his  righteousness  belongs  to  him  still 
more  entirely.  However  strange  the  paradox,  it  is  more  lam- 
self  than  even  that  is.  He  must  express  that  conviction,  he 
does  express  it,  though  he  knows,  better  than  any  one  can  tell 
him,  how  much  it  is  at  variance  with  what  he  had  been  think- 
ing and  saying  the  moment  before. 

So  also  of  the  suffering.     He  has  wonderful  intuitions,  ever 
and  anon,  of  the  mercy  and  goodness  of  God.      He  belie\ 
that  He  is  trying  him,  and  that  He  will  bring  him  forth  out  of 
the  fires.     And  yet,  why  does  this  happen  to  him  7     What  is 


MY  KEDEEMER  LlVETli.  45 

it  all  for'?  He  will  not  cheat  God  and  outrage  His  truth,  by 
uttering  soft  phrases  which  set  at  nought  the  conviction  of  his 
heart.  There  is  that  about  him  from  which  he  feels  that  he 
ought  to  be  delivered,  an  anguish  of  body  and  soul,  which 
he  cannot  reconcile  with  the  goodness  he  yet  clings  to  and 
trusts  in. 

There  comes  a  moment  in  the  life  of  Job  when  these  two 
thoughts,  the  thought  of  a  righteousness  within  him  which  is 
mightier  than  the  evil,  the  thought  of  some  deliverance  from 
his  suffering  which  should  be  also  a  justification  of  God,  are 
brought  together  in  his,mind.  He  exclaims,  "  I  know  that  my 
Redeemer  liveth ;  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God,  ivhom  I  shall  see 
for  myself,  and  mine  eyes  shall  behold,  and  not  another?''*  He 
expects  that  this  Eedeemer  will  stand  at  the  latter  day  upon 
the  earth.  But  he  evidently  does  not  rest  upon  an  expecta- 
tion. It  is  not  what  this  Eedeemer  may  be  or  may  do  hereaf- 
ter he  chiefly  thinks   of.     He  lives.     He  is  with  him  now. 

*  The  force  of  this  passage,  as  I  understand  it,  is  not  in  the  least 
affected  by  the  question  whether  the  word  "Redeemer"  should  be 
exchanged  for  the  "  Avenger  of  Blood."  I  do  not  quote  Job  to  prove  a 
future  state,  or  anything  relating  to  a  future  state.  The  idea  of  an 
Avenger  is  inseparably  connected  with  that  of  a  Redeemer  ;  he  who  be- 
lieves there  is  one,  believes  there  is  the  other.  I  make  this  remark  in 
especial  Reference  to  an  eloquent  article  on  the  book  of  Job,  which  has 
appeared  in  the  Westminster  Revietcy  since  the  first  edition  of  these 
Essays  was  published.  To  a  great  part  of  that  article  I  must  object,  as 
containing  what  seems  to  me  a  wrong  statement  of  facts.  I  cannot  find, 
as  I  have  explained  more  at  large  in  my  Sermons  on  the  Old  Testament, 
that  the  Jewish  Scriptures  exhibit  that  theory  about  Prosperity  and  Ad- 
versity which  the  Reviewer  attributes  to  them.  Every  one  of  the  heroes 
of  the  history,  Joseph,  Moses,  David,  is  a  sufferer.  The  chosen  people 
is  a  suffering  people.  But  this  difference  between  us  does  not  affect  the 
Reviewer's  interpretation  of  the  text  to  which  I  have  alluded.  I  am 
quite  content  that  he  should  demolish,  any  formal  argument  which  has 
been  deduced  from  it;  its  practical  and  spiritual  significance  become 
thereby  the  more  apparent. 


46  THE  BOOK  ACCEPTED  AS  TRUE. 

Therefore  he  calls  upon  his  friends  to  say  whether  they  do  not 
.see  that  he  has  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him. 

At  length,  we  are  told,  God  answers  Job  out  of  the  whirl- 
wind. He  showrs  him  a  depth  of  wisdom  in  the  flight  of  every 
bird  and  in  the  structure  of  every  insect,  which  he  cannot  dive 
into.  He  shows  him  an  order  which  he  is  sure  is  very  good 
though  he  is  lost  in  it.  Then  he  says,  "  I  have  heard  of  Thee 
by  the  hearing  of  the  ear ;  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  Thee. 
Wherefore  I  abhor  myself,  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes." 
A  wonderful  conclusion  follows.  God  justifies  the  complain- 
ing man  more  than  those  who  had  pleaded  so  earnestly  for  his 
power  and  providence.  They  are  forgiven  when  he  prays 
for  them.  And  the  last  days  of  Job  are  better  than  the  be- 
ginning. 

The  early  passages  in  the  book  of  Job  respecting  Satan  seem 
to  anticipate  what  I  said  wras  especially  New  Testament  the- 
ology. They  do  so  only,  I  believe,  because  the  story  is  more 
simply  human,  less  Jewish,  than  any  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Job  is  represented  as  living  outside  of  the  limits  within  which 
the  posterity  of  Abraham  was  confined.  No  words  are  us 
to  identify  him  with  them,  or  to  show  that  he  poi  d  any  of 

the  privileges  with  which  their  covenant  and  history  invested 
them.  We  have  here,  therefore,  what  is  at  least  meant  to  be 
a  history  of  human  experienoe.  Whether  it  is  biographical  or 
dramatical,  or,  as  I  conceive,  both,  this  must  be  the  intention 
of  it.  Job  is  shown,  and  we  are  shown,  by  an  cxperimentum 
cruris,  what  in  him  is  merely  accidental,  what  belongs  to  him 
as  a  man.  Christendom  has  received  the  book  in  this  sense. 
Doctors  have  taken  pains  to  illustrate  it,  and  have  left  it  much 
as  they  found  it.  Plain,  suffering  men  have  understood  it  with 
all  its  difficulties  much  better  than  the  most  simple  tracts  writ- 
ten expressly  for  their  use.-  You  will  see  bedridden  women, 
just  able  to  make  out  the  letters  of  it,  feeding  on  it,  and  find- 
ing themselves  in  it.     You  will  hear  men  who  regard  our 


ALL  HAVE  A  SENSE  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  47 

Theology  as  a  miserable  attempt  to  form  a  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse, expressing  their  delight  in  this  one  of  our  theological 
books,  because  it  so  nobly  and  triumphantly  casts  theories  of 
the  universe  to  the  ground.  How  it  squares  with  our  hypo- 
theses they  cannot  imagine,  but  it  certainly  answers  to  the 
testimony  of  their  hearts. 

And  I  believe  most  clergymen,  most  religious  persons,  who 
have  conversed  at  all  seriously  with  men  of  any  class,  from  the 
most  refined  to  the  most  ignorant,  in  any  state  of  mind,  from 
that  of  the  most  contented  Pharisee  to  that  of  the  lowest  crim- 
inal, have  another  test  of  the  authenticity  of  the  book  as  a 
record  of  actual  humanity.  (jThey  hear  from  one  and  all,  in 
some  language  or  other,  the  assertionof  a  righteousness  which 
they  are  sure  is  theirs,  and  which  cannot  be  taken  from  them. 
They  may  call  themselves  miserable  sinners  ;  some  of  them 
may  feel  that  they  are  so ;  some  may  tremble  at  the  judgment 
which  they  think  is  coming  upon  them  for  their  sins.  But  in 
all  there  is  a  secret  reserve  of  belief,  that  there  is  in  them  that 
which  is  not  sin,  which  is  the  very  opposite  of  sin.  When  you 
tell  them  that  the  feeling  is  very  wrong,  that  "  Grod  be  mer- 
ciful to  me"  is  the  only  true  prayer,  that  God's  law  is  very 
holy,  that  they  have  violated  it,  and  so  forth, — they  will  listen 
— they  may  assent.  From  prudence  or  deference  to  you  they 
may  suppress  the  offensive  phrase,  or  change  their  tone.  Those 
will  not  be  the  best  and  honestest  who  do  so.  The  man  who 
cries,  Till  I  die  you  shall  not  take  my  integrity  from  me,  and  who 
makes  his  teacher  weep  for  the  fearful  deceitfulness  of  the  human 
heart,  may  be  nearest,  if  the  Bible  speaks  right,  to  the  root  of 
the  matter, — nearest  to  repentance  and  humiliation.  But  be 
that  as  it  may,  the  fact  in  each  case  is  nearly  the  same.\  Each 
man  has  got  this  sense  of  a  righteousness,  whether  he  realizes 
it  distinctly  or  indistinctly,  whether  he  expresses  it  courage- 
ously or  keeps  it  to  himself. 

Not  less  true  is  it  that  each  man  has  that  other  conviction 


48  vais. 

which  Job  uttered  so  manfully,  that  pain  is  an  evil  and  comes 
from  an  enemy,  and  is  contrary  to  the  nature  and  reason  of 
things ;  however  from  a  stoical  maxim,  or  a  sense  of  duty,  or 
a  habit  of  patience,  he  may  submit  to  it ;  however  much,  to 
please  his  teacher  or  to  get  rid  of  him,  he  may  assent  to 
phrases  which  appear  to  affirm  an  opposite  doctrine.  The  wit- 
ness of  the  conscience, — of  the  whole  man,  on  this  point,  is  too 
strong  for  any  cool,  disinterested  reflections.  It  is  no  time  for 
school  distinctions  about  soul  and  body.  Both  are  confounded 
in  one  mortal  anguish. 

And  when  the  man  sends  forth  a  bitter  cry  towards  heaven, 
when  he  expresses  his'faith  that  he  has  a  Deliverer  somewhere, 
it  is  not  a  Redeemer  for  his  soul  that  he  asks,  more  than  for 
his  body.  It  is  from  the  condition  in  which  he  finds  himself 
that  he  cries  to  be  set  free ;  he  feels  that  he  has  a  kind  of  right 
to  be  set  free  from  it.  To  be  as  he  is,  is  not,  he  thinks,  accord- 
ing to  nature  and  order.  He  asks  God,  if  he  asks  at  allj  to 
show  that  it  is  not  according  to  His  will. 

If  we  did  believe  that  there  is  a  divine  process,  such  as  the 
Book  of  Job  describes  to  us, — if  we  might  take  that  book  as 
an  inspired  history  of  God's  ways  to  men, — we  should  not 
surely  stop  at  this  point  of  the  application.  We  should  sup- 
pose God  was  really  answering  his  creature  and  child  out  of 
the  whirlwind  ;  and  by  wonderful  arguments,  drawn,  it  may  be, 
from  the  least  object  in  nature,  from  the  commonest  fact  of  the 
man's  experience,  or  from  the  whole  Cosmos  in  which  he  fin- Is 
himself,  addressed  to  an  ear  which  our  words  do  not  reach, 
entering  secret  passages  of  the  spirit  to  which  w-e  have  no 
access,  was  leading  him, — the  instincts  and  anticipations  of 
his  heart  being  not  denied  but  justified, — to  lay  himself  in  dust 
and  ashes.  When  a  man  knows  that  he  has  a  righteous  Lord 
and  Judge,  who  does  not  plead  His  omnipotence  and  His  right 
to  punish,  but  who  debates  the  case  with  him,  who  shows  him 
his  truth  and  his  error,  the  sense  of  Infinite  Wisdom,  sustain- 


CnRIST   BEFORE   THE    GOSPELS.  49 

ing  and  carrying  out  Infinite  Love,  abases  him  rapidly.  He 
perceives  that  he  has  been  measuring  himself,  and  his  under- 
standing, against  that  Love,  that  Wisdom.  A  feeling  of 
infinite  shame  grows  out  of  the  feeling  of  undoubting  trust. 
The  child  sinks  in  nothingness  at  its  Father's  feet,  just  when 
He  is  about  to  take  it  to  His  arms. 

But  it  is  a  Father,  not  a  vague  world,  before  which  he  has 
bowed.  Oh !  if  we  would  preserve  our  brethren  from  a  dark 
abyss  of  Pantheism,  whmi  their  spirits  are  beginning  to  open 
to  some  of  the  harmonies  of  the  universe,  let  us  not  pause  till 
we  understand  how  it  should  be  the  end  of  God's  discipline 
to  justify  Job  more  than  his  three  friends ;  how  it  can  be  pos- 
sible for  Him  to  sanction  that  conviction  of  an  actual  righteous- 
ness, belonging  to  the  man  himself,  which  we  were  so  anxious 
to  confute.  I  believe,  for  this  purpose,  we  must  lay  the  foun- 
dations of  our  faith  deeper,  not  than  they  are  laid  in  the  Scrip- 
tures or  in  our  Creeds,  but  very  much  deeper  than  they  are 
laid  in  modern  expositions.  We  say  we  wish  to  bring  the  sin- 
ner, weary,  heavy-laden,  and  hopeless,  to  Christ.  What  can 
be  a  more  blessed,  or  more  benevolent,  or  more  divine  desire  ? 
But  do  we  mean  that  we  merely  wish  to  bring  the  sinner  to 
know  what  Christ  did  and  spoke,  in  those  thirty-three  years 
between  his  birth  and  his  resurrection?  I  fear  we  shall  never 
understand  the  infinite  significance  of  those  years,  or  be  able 
to  take  the  Gospel  narratives  of  them  simply  as  they  stand,  if 
we  hare  no  other  thought  than  this,  or  if  there  is  no  other 
which  we  dare  proclaim  to  our  fellow-men.  Do  we  not  really 
believe  that  Christ  was,  before  He  took  human  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us  1  Do  we  not  suppose  that  He  actually  conversed 
with  prophets  and  patriarchs,  and  made  them  aware  of  His 
presence  ?  Or  is  this  a  mere  arid  dogma  which  we  prove  out 
of  Pearson,  and  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  inmost  con- 
victions, with  our  very  life  ?  How  has  it  become  so  ?  Is  it 
not  because  we  do  not  accept  the  New  Testament  explanation 
3 


50  THE  8TRAUSSIAN  DOCTRINE. 

of  these  appearances  and  manifestations;  because  we  do  not 
believe  that  Christ  is  in  every  man,  the  source  of  all  light  that 
ever  visits  him,  the  root  of  all  the  righteous  thoughts  and  acts 
that  lie  is  ever  able  to  conceive  or  do  ? 

I  am  afraid,  not  only  that  we  are  letting  this  truth  go,  but 
that  we  are  actually  disbelieving  it,  and  that  we  shall  therefore 
fall  not  into  the  doctrine  about  Christ  which  prevailed  in  the 
last  century,  not  into  a  belief  of  Him  as  a  man  and  nothing 
more  than  a  man, — various  experiences  have  been  making  it 
difficult,  almost  impossible,  for  us  to  acquiesce  in  such  a  the- 
ory,— but  into  the  notion  of  Him  as  a  shadow-personage?,  whom 
the  imagination  has  clothed,  as  it  does  all  its  heroes,  with  a 
certain,  divinity,  really  belonging  to  and  derived  from  itself. 
That  notion,  when  it  is  presented  to  our  divines,  strikes  them 
at  first  with  amazement,  as  an  hypothesis  which  cannot  by  pos- 
sibility gain  acceptance  with  reasonable  people.  Then  tl 
discover  how  much  acceptance  it  has  gained ;  how  naturally 
men  in  our  day  fall  into  it ;  how  many  of  them  seem  to  receive 
it  as  if  it  was  that  which  they  had  always  been  holding,  only 
they  had  not  courage  to  tell  themselves  so,  or  skill  to  put 
their  thoughts  into  words. 

The  next  step  is  to  look  about  for  some  method  of  confuting 
the  theory ;  to  see  whether  we  can  prove  that  Strauss  and  his 
disciples  have  misquoted  the  New  Testament  or  abused  ancient 
authorities.  Perhaps,  if  we  cannot  establish  these  points  suf- 
ficiently by  our  learning,  our  German  friends,  who  have  been 
more  closely  engaged  in  the  battle,  may  help  us.  I  dare  Bay 
they  can,  and  that  we  also  may  do  something  for  ourselves  in 
that  line,  if  we  try.  But  I  am  convinced,  also,  that  the  effort 
will  be  worth  next  to  nothing,  if  it  is  made  ever  so  skilfully,  if 
our  blows  are  ever  so  straight  and  well  directed.  That  which 
is  a  tendency  and  habit  of  the  heart,  is  not  cured  by  deteclfhg 
fallacies  in  the  mode  in  which  it  is  embodied  and  presented  to 
the  intellect.     If  you  have  no  other  way  of  showing  Christ  not 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT  OF  RIGHT  IN  MAN.  61 

to  be  a  mythical  being,  or  a  man  elevated  into  a  God  by  the 
same  process  which  has  deified  thousands  before  and  since, 
except  by  convicting  the  propounder  of  the  hypothesis  of  some 
philological  and  historical  blunders,  you  imry  be  quite  sure 
that  he  will  prevail,  though  those  blunders  were  multiplied  a 
thousandfold. 

I  would  earnestly  entreat  our  divines  to  think  well  wbethei 
they  are  not  to  blame  for  the  prevalence  of  this  theory;  and 
whether,  if  they  would  eradicate  it,  they  must  not,  in  the  first 
place,  deal  much  more  honestly  with  the  facts  of  human  expe- 
rience, and  secondly,  connect  those  facts  with  principles  which 
they  admit  to  a  certain  extent,  when  they  are  arguing  with 
those  who  deny  them,  but  which  they  seldom  fairly  present 
to  themselves,   and    still  more  rarely  bring  home  to  the  con- 
sciences of  their  suffering  fellow  men.     The  facts  I  have  tried 
to   present  in  the  light  in  which  Scripture  exhibits  them  to  us, 
— Scripture  abundantly  confirmed  by  daily  observation.     We 
apply  the  principle  to  those  facts,  when  we  say  boldly  to  the 
man  who  declares  that  he  has  a  righteousness  which  no  one 
shall   remove  from   him — "  That  is  true.     You  have  such  a 
righteousness.     It   is   deeper  than  all  the  iniquity  which  is  in 
you.     It  lies  at  the  very  ground  of  your  existence.     And  this 
righteousness  dwells  not  merely  in  a  law  which  is  condemning 
you,   it  dwells  in   a  Person  in  w?hom  you  may  trust.     The 
righteous  Lord   of  man  is  with  you,  not  in  some   heaven  to 
wThieh  you   must  ascend   that   you   may  bring  Him  down,  in 
some  hell  to  which  you  must  dive  that  you  may  raise  Him  up, 
but  nigh  you,  at  your  heart." 

The  principle  is  expressed  again  when  we  say,  (i  You  main- 
tain that  the  pain  you  are  suffering  is  not  good  but  ill, — a  sign 
of  wrong  and  disorder.  You  say  that  it  is  a  bondage,  from 
which  you  must  seek  deliverance.  You  say  that  you  cannot 
stop  to  settle  in  what  part  of  you  it  is,  that  it  is  throughout 
you,  that  it  affects  you   altogether,  that  you  wTant  a  complete 


r„ 


2  EFFECTS  OF  PAIN,  AND  THE  CURE  OF  IT. 


emancipation  from  it.  Even  so,  Hold  fast  that  conviction. 
Let  no  man,  divine  or  layman,  rob  you  of  it.  Pain  is  a  sign 
and  witness  of  disorder,  the  consequence  of  disorder.  It  is 
mockery  to  say  otherwise.  You  describe  it  rightly ;  it  is  a  bon- 
dage, the  sign  that  a  tyrant  has  in  some  way  intruded  himself 
into  this  earth  of  our's.  But  you  are  permitted  to  suffer  the 
consequence  of  that  intrusion,  just  that  you  may  attain  to  the 
knowledge  of  another  fact, — that  there  is  a  Redeemer,  that 
He  lives,  that  He  is  the  stronger.  That  righteous  King  of 
your  heart  whom  you  have  felt  tcTbe  so  near  you,  so  one  with 
you,  that  you  could  hardly  help  identifying  Him  with  yourself, 
even  while  you  confessed  that  you  were  so  evil,  He  is  the 
Redeemer  as  well  as  the  Lord  of  you  and  of  man.  Believe 
that  He  is  so.      Ask  to  in:  and  the  way  in  which  He  has 

proved  Himself  so.  You  will  find  that  God,  not  we,  has  been 
teaching  you  of  Him,  that  He  has  been  talking  with  you  in 
the  whirlwind,  while  we  were  darkening  counsel  with  words 
without  knowledge ;  leading  you,  to  the  sight  of  His  glory, 
that  He  might  make  you  willing  to  confess  your  own  base- 
ness. He  has  taught  you  that  you  have  been  in  chains,  but 
that  you  have  been  a  willing  wearer  of  the  chains.  To  break 
them  He  must  set  you  free.  Self  is  your  great  prison- 
house.  The  strong  man  armed,  who  keeps  that  prison  in 
safety,  must  be  bound.  The  rod  of  the  enchanter,  who 
holds  your  will  in  bondage,  must  be  broken  by  some  diviner 
spell   before  the  arms  can  be  loo3ed,  and  the  captive  rise  and 


move  again. 


'■  If  you  have  carried  away  this  lesson  from  your  hours  of 
suffering  and  resolve  to  keep  it,  your  latter  days  will  be  bet- 
ter than  the  beginning.  The  grey  hairs  of  the  stricken,  worn 
out,  desolate  man,  though  no  new  children  should  crowd  hit 
hearth  in  place  of  those  that  are  departed,  though  no  flocks 
and  herds  should  be  restored  to  him  for  those  which  the  rol 
here  have  taken  away,  will  be  fresher,  freer,  more  hopeful  than 
the  untaught  innocence  of  his  childhood.     But  you  have  had, 


UNITARIAN  PROTESTS.  53 

in  those  hours,  a  glimpse  into  the  deep  mystery,  how  God  may 
use  the  consequences  of  the  evil  to  which  you  have  yielded, — 
and  can  make  also  the  deliverance,  if  it  be  at  present  only  a 
partial  one,  from  those  consequences, — instruments  in  your 
emancipation  from  the  evil  itself;  because^  through  His  disci- 
pline, these  have  become  the  means  of  leading  you  to  the 
apprehension  of  Himself,  and  of  that  Daysman,  between  us 
and  Him,  whom  Job  saw  that  he  needed,  and  who  must  be  as 
much  yours  as  He  was  His." 

The  remarks  I  made  in  my  last  Essay  show  that  I  do  not 
undervalue  the  testimony  which  the  elder  Unitarians  bore 
against  some  of  the  phrases  and  opinions  respecting  human 
nature  and  human  corruption,  into  which  our  popular  reli- 
gious teachers  have  fallen.  They  maintained  stoutly,  that  ordi- 
nary men  do  good  acts,  and  that  we  have  no  business  to  call  such 
acts  splendid  sins.  "  Either,"  they  said,  "  words  mean  noth- 
ing, and  human  language,  when  it  is  turned  to  religious  pur- 
poses, is  used  to  conceal  not  to  express  our  thoughts,  or  else 
the  epithets,  gentle,  brave,  just,  to  whomsoever  they  are  applied) 
must  be  taken  as  expressing  sincere  moral  commendation,  and 
must  not  be  explained  away  because  we  have  some  mental 
reservation  about  the  religion  or  irreligion  of  the  person  to 
whom  we  apply  them."  All  such  protests  seem  to  me  honest 
appeals  to  the  conscience,  and  to  the  truth  of  God, — denuncia- 
ations  of  a  style  of  thinking,  and  judging  which  leads  to  the 
most  fatal  moral  confusions. 

But  the  Unitarians,  I  think,  were  very  little  able  to  sustain 
these  useful  assertions  of  theirs  against  an  earnest  and  thought- 
ful man,  who  had  known  what  evil  was  in  himself,  and  who 
had  adopted  St.  Paul's  language,  not  only  because  it  was  St. 
Paul's,  but  because  it  expressed  the  deepest  thoughts  of  his 
own  heart,  In  me,  that  is,  in  my  flesh,  dioelleth  no  good  thing. 
Such  expressions  seemed  to  them  merely  extravagant  and 
foolish  ;  indications  of  a  temporary  insanity  in  the  person  who 
resorted  to  them,  which  time  or  change  of  air  would  probably 


54  EARNEST  MEN  NOT  CONVINCED. 

cure.  Sometimes  they  saw  that  these  remedies  were  effectual. 
The  man's  judgment  of  himself  was  conneeted  with  much  that 
was  morbid;  his  judgments  of  others,  and  the  theories  which 
he  deduced  from  his  experience,  he  gradually  perceived  to  be 
uncharitable  and  untenable ;  his  vivid  impressions  yielded  to 
such  discoveries  and  passed  away.  There  were  others  whom 
neither  time  nor  change  of  air,  nor  the  observation  of  their 
own  rashness,  nor  repentance  for  it,  at  all  shook  in  this  strong 
and  solid  conviction.  They  had  found  the  Apostle's  asser- 
tion to  be  true.  They  could  abandon  it  for  no  Pelagian 
refinements.  "With  them,  these  Unitarians  felt  themselves 
utterly  at  a  loss.  They  could  only  talk  to  them  about  an 
external  morality,  of  which  the  hearers  made  no  account,  The 
disputants  were  speaking  of  different  subjects;  but  subjects 
between  which  there  e  I  a  close  connexion  ;  one  of  which, 

if  rightly  understood,  would  have  been  bf  the  greatest  help  in 
explaining  the  other.  The  Unitarians  discoursed  concerning 
the  doings  of  a  man,  those  they  called  enthusiasts  concerning 
his  being.  But  how  poor  are  his  doings  if  they  do  not  draw 
life  from  his  being;  how  much  he  will  deceive  himself  about 
his  being,  if  it  does  not  make  itself  manifest  in  doings  !  1  low 
soon  will  even  commercial  honesty  perish,  if  you  have  not 
found  out  the  secret  of  making  the  man  honest !  But  how 
easy  is  it  for  a  man  to  frame  for  himself  a  certain  internal 
standard,  which  shall  be  compatible  with  the  greatest  external 
fraud  and  wrong  ! 

I  am  sure  people  are  coming  to  some  discoveries  of  this 
kind ;  and  that  they  are  almost  equally  dissatisfied  with  that 
flimsy  doctrine  about  behaviour,  which  was  all  that  the  religion 
df  rewards  and  punishments  could  produce,  and  with  that  asser- 
tion of  truths  as  belonging  to  the  believer  and  not  to  other 
men,  which  is  its  antagonist.  Both  systems  are  falling  by 
their  own  weight.  The  external  moralist  fails  to  produce  the 
results  he  says  are  all-important ;  the  exclusive  religionist 
shows  himself  more  worldly  than  his  neighbors.     But  while 


denial  of  Christ's  pre-existence.  55 

# 

each  is  separately  perishing,  was  there  no  truth  in  each  which 
cannot  perish  ?     "What  is  it  ?     How  shall  we  find  it  out  ? 

I  have  been  led  in  this  Essay  to  seek  for  this  reconciliation, 
by  a  method  which  will  seem  to  the  Unitarian  to  the  last  de- 
cree strange  and  monstrous.  What  infinite  pains  Priestly  and 
his  school  took  to  disprove  the  pre-existence  of  our  Lord  ! 
How  satisfactorily  they  showed  that  that  pre-existence  must 
imply  something  more  than  the  Arians  said  it  implied;  that 
there  was  no  resting  in  their  half  conclusion !  How  indefatiga- 
bly  they  strove  to  exhaust  Scripture  of  all  expressions  which 
savored  of  this  mystical  imagination  !  With  what  rapture  they 
hailed  a  bad  translation,  or  a  doubtful  reading !  How  re- 
solved they  were  that  even  the  early  Church  and  the  early 
heretics  should  not  mean  what  all  previous  students  of  their  lan- 
guage thought  they  must  mean !  They  exhibited  great  diligence, 
undoubtedly,  and  diligence  not  without  its  reward.  For  their 
orthodox  antagonists,  eager  to  confute  these  statements,  made 
a  concession  which,  fur  their  purposes,  was  quite  invaluable. 
They  argued  as  if  you  might  start  from  the  Unitarian  hypo- 
thesis of  our  Lord's  nature,  and  then  prove  Him  to  be  some- 
thing more  than  that  lu'pothesis  affirmed  Him  to  be.  It  was 
to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  new  Testament  spoke  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  first  as  a  good  man  and  a  great  prophet; 
it  was  to  be  contended  that  it  also  spoke  of  Him  as  divine. 

To  be  involved  in  such  a  controversy  is  to  be  involved  in  the 
necessity  of  arguing,  refining,  special-pleading  for  a  principle 
which,  at  the  same  time,  we  affirm  to  be  the  substance  of  the 
Gospel,  to  be  connected  with  the  very  life  of  man.  What  an 
utterly  false  position  for  men  to  be  thrown  into  !  How  could 
the  spectators  help  thinking  that  it  was  a  fencing-match,  the 
interest  of  which  depended  upon  successful  parries  and  thrusts ; 
unless,  as  was  too  often  the  case,  the  combat  acquired  a  deadly 
interest  when  one  of  the  combatants  wras  persuaded  into  the 
crime  of  Laertes,  when,  changing  their  rapiers,  they  struck 


•56  MOTIVES  TO  BTRAUSSIANISM. 

each  other  with  the  poisoned  instrument  ?  And  where  there 
was  on  the  one  side  the  advantage  of  academical  fame,  of 
ecclesiastical  dignity,  the  shouts  of  the  crowd,  the  patronage  of 
the  state,  the  sympathies  of  the  lovers  of  fair  play  would  of 
course  be  bestowed  on  the  opposite. 

It  was  not  exactly  that  the  supporter  of  the  orthodox  side 
chose  a  bad  standing  ground.  In  the  last  age  this  was  felt  to 
be  the  natural  standing-ground.  Some  men  were  driven  from  it 
by  spiritual  convictions;  some  found  it  inconsistent  with  a 
scholarlike  study  of  the  Bible;  but  most  spoke  as  if  it  were 
the  reasonable  position.  You  yielded  it  up  in  deference  to  an 
invincible  array  of  texts  or  authorities,  or  to  some  power  which 
directly  bore  upon  your  own  spirit.  Those  who  maintained  it 
were  supposed  to  be  adopting  the  faith  which  every  philoso- 
pher and  every  simple  man  would  adopt,  unless  he  were  pre- 
pared for  a  very  bold  iniidelity,  or  unless,  in  deference  to 
Scripture  ami  tradition,  he  gave  up  his  common  sense. 

In  what  I  have  said  ol  Strauss,  1  have  hinted  how  much  the 
e  is  altered  now  in  this  respect.  The  habit  of  thought 
which  made  the  arguments  of  the  Humanitarians  seem  so 
strong  and  decisive,  which  was  always  ready  to  supply  any 
gaps  in  their  reasoning,  is  subverted.  Through  whatever  in- 
fluence the  change  has  come  to  pass,  philosophers  recognise  it ; 
all  feel  it.  There  is  no  eagerness  now  to  show  that  the  disci- 
ples of  Jesus  did  not  attach  a  mysterious  and  supernatural  dig- 
nity to  His  character ;  the  labor  is  to  prove  that  they  did. 
Philology  is  discovered  to  have  been  in  favor  of  the  older 
notion  of  their  opinions;  only  philosophy  failed  in  accounting 
for  them.  The  modern  Unitarian  has  strong:  motives  for  looking 
favorably  upon  statements  of  this  kind.  They  meet  the  discon- 
tent with  which  he  has  learnt  to  regard  the  dryness  of  his  own 
creed.  They  justify  his  traditional  dislike  of  the  orthodox 
creed.  They  gratify  his  desire  for  a  religion  which  shall  point 
less  to  external  conduct,  more  to  internal  life.     \i  he  can  look 


WHO  CANNOT  YIELD  TO  THEM.  57 

upon  Jesus  as  connected  in  some  way  with  the  experiences  of 
his  own  heart,  with  those  spiritual  conflicts  of  which  he  has 
learnt  to  see  the  significance,  what  an  emancipation  it  will  be 
from  the  formalism  which  he  hates,  in  his  own  school  and  ours  ! 
How  much  more  easily  than  Priestly  or  Belsham,  with  how 
much  less  of  outrage  upon  scholarship,  he  can  get  rid  of  mere 
texts  and  narratives  ;  with  how  much  more  of  delight  than  they 
ever  betrayed,  can  he  recognise  all  that  was  divinest  in  the  life 
of  him  who  is  called  the  Son  of  Man  ;  with  how  much  more  of 
freedom  and  less  of  exclusiveness  can  he  connect  him  with  all 
the  other  great  champions  of  the  race  ! 

Yes  ;  these  are  great  temptations,  irresistible  temptations  to 
one  wmo,  as  Bunyan  says,  "  has  not  a  burthen  on  his  back."  I 
may  easily  persuade  myself  that  the  Christ  I  was  taught  to  be- 
lieve in,  is  a  creation  of  the  human  intellect  or  imagination. 
That  hypothesis  will  come  to  me  clothed  with  a  wonderful 
plausibility,  when  I  stumble  all  at  once,  in  my  walks  through 
this  common  world,  upon  mines  of  which  I  had  not  suspected 
the  existence, — mines  in  which  the  most  busy  processes  are 
going  on,  and  must  have  been  going  on  for  generations.  But 
if  by  chance  while  I  am  exploring  these  rich  mines  in  myself, 
I  am  brought  to  a  standstill  by  the  discovery  that  /am  the 
worker  of  them  ;  that  I  have  worked  them  ill ;  that  I  am  the 
steward  of  some  one  who  is  the  possessor  of  them ;  that  I  am 
bankrupt,  and  guilty  ; — then  it  becomes  a  necessity — not  of  my 
traditional  faith,  or  of  my  fears,  hut — of  my  inmost  spirit,  that 
I  should  find  some  One  whom  I  did  not  create,  some  One  who 
is  not  subject  to  my  accidents  and  changes,  some  One  in 
whom  I  may  rest  for  life  and  death.  Who  is  this  ?  What 
name  have  you  for  Him  ?  I  say  it  is  the  Christ,  whose  name 
I  was  taught  to  pronounce  in  my  childhood ;  the  Righteous 
one,  the  Eedeemer  in  whom  Job,  and  David,  and  the  Prophets 
trusted,  the  ground  of  all  that  is  true,  in  you,  and  me,  and  every 
man  ;  the  Source  of  the  good  acts, — which  are  therefore  not 
splendid  sins, — of  you  and  me,  and  every  man  ;  the  Light  that 
3* 


58  CONCLUSION. 

lighteth  every  man  who  cometli  into  the  world.  Apart  from 
Him,  I  feel  that  there  dwells  in  me  no  good  thing;  but  I  am 
sure  that  I  am  not  apart  from  Him,  nor  are  you,  nor  4s  any 
man.  I  have  a  right  to  tell  you  this  :  if  I  have  any  work  to  do 
in  the  world  it  is  to  tell  you  this.  And  now  I  will  tell  you 
further  why  I  hold  that  this  righteous  Being  is  the  Son 
of  God. 


ESSAY  V 


THE  SON  OF  GOD. 


"  I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  only  Son  of  God,  our 
Lord,"  has  been  for  eighteen  centuries  the  creed  of  Christen- 
dom. The  teachers  to  whom.  I  alluded  in  my  last  Essay,  are 
especially  active  in  pointing  out  the  delusion  into  which  we 
have  fallen  upon  this  subject. 

"  All  mythologies  recognise  Sons  of  God.  Every  legendary 
person  in  the  Greek  wTorld  wits  the  offspring  of  some 
God;  the  most  conspicuous,  of  Zeus,  the  chief  God. 
WheVe  is  your  singularity  ?  Where  are  the  signs  of  some  es- 
sential characteristic  divinity  in  your  faith  1  It  bears  about  it 
the  ordinary  tokens  of  humanity.  To  these  it  owes  its  gen- 
eral acceptance.  In  this  instance,  as  in  all  others,  it  has 
adopted  into  itself  those  human  feelings  and  notions  which 
had  taken  various  forms  in  different  ages  and  races;  it  has 
adopted  them  free  from  some  adjuncts  and  accidents  which 
were  worn  out  and  ready  to  perish.  It  has  added  to  them  ac- 
cidents of  its  own,  which  will  drop  off  in  due  time  by  a  neces- 
sary law.  It  has  especially  connected  a  high  ideal  of  humanity 
with  a  particular  person.     That  ideal  will  be  found  to  belong 

(59) 


00  SONS  OF  GOD    IN   MYTHOLOGY. 

to  the  whole  race,  not  to  him.  He  will  retain  a  high  place 
among  the  asserters  of  human  rights  and  duties,  not  that 
which  the  idolatry  of  his  disciples  has  assigned  him.1' 

I  have  admitted  already  that  the  ordinary  methods  of  con- 
troversy are  entirely  out  of  place  when  statements  of  this  kind 
are  propounded.  The  question,  whichever  way  it  is  decided, 
must  concern  the  life  and  being  of  every  one  of  us.  It  must 
affect  the  condition  of  mankind  now,  and  the  whole  future  his- 
tory of  the  world.  To  argue  and  debate  it  as  if  it  turned 
upon  points  of  verbal  criticism,  as  if  the  determination  could 
be  influenced  by  the  greater  or  less  skill  in  reasoning  on  either 
side,  as  if  it  could  be  settled  by  votes,  must  have  the  effect 
of  darkening  our  consciences,  of  making  us  doubt  inwardly 
whether  the  truth  signifies  anything  to  us,  or  whether  we  can 
arrive  at  it.  To  keep  silence  on  these  doubts,  if  this  is  the 
only  modi'  of  treating  them,  is  not  only  a  sign  of  religious 
reverence,  but  of  common  sense.  But  since  there  is,  I  believe, 
another  way  of  dealing  with  thein — one  which  will  be 
acknowledged  as  fairer  by  those  who  experience  them,  and  yet 
one  which  does  not  require  the  heart  and  conscience  to  be 
asleep,  but  which  asks  all  their  help  in  determining  whether 
we  have  received  a  fable,  or  are  holding,  all  too  weakly,  an 
eternal  verity — I  consider  it  much  safer  not  to  leave  such  a 
topic  to  the  chances  of  ordinary  conversation  and  popular  lit- 
erature, but  to  introduce  it  into  solemn  discourses  as  if  we 
were  aware  of  the  number  of  human  souls  which  it  is  tor- 
menting. 

Our  first  plain  duty  is  to  admit  the  fact  as  it  is  stated,  not 
entering  into  particulars  for  the  sake  of  showing  whether  there 
are  any  exceptions  to  it  or  limitations  of  it.  For  our  purpose 
it  is  not  necessary  to  inquire  why  the  Oriental  spol  re  of 

emanations  from  God,  and  the  Greeks,  as  well  as  our  own 
( rothio  ancestors,  more  of  sons  of  God.  The  question  is  very 
interesting  and  even  important.     I  may  allude  to  it  again  at 


j0?  I"  ^ 

WHAT  IS  INVOLVED  IN  IT.  61y 

some  other  time,  but  it  is  enough  here  to  admit  the  general 
proposition,  that  sons  of  God  will  be  found  occupying  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  mythology  of  every  people  which  has 
left  any  strong  impression  of  itself  upon  the  history  of  the 
world.  This  being  granted,  the  next  point  is  to  ascertain 
what  are  those  general  human  feelings  which  this  faith  embo- 
dies. We  cannot  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  allow  that  there 
are  some;  that  it  is  very  desirable  to  know  what  they  are; 
and  that  they  must  be  nearly  related  to  Christianity. 

First,  then,  it  seems  to  be  an  instinct  of  men,  so  far  as  we 
may  judge  by  these  indications,  that  their  helpers  must-  come 
to  them  from  some  mysterious  region  ;  that  they  cannot  be 
merely  children  of  the  earth,  merely  of  their  own  race.  If 
they  belong  to  us — so  the  conscience  of  man  interpreted  by 
history  seems  to  bear  witness — they  cannot  understand  our 
evils,  or  bring  any  power  that  is  adequate  to  overcome  them. 
Secondly,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  strong  persuasion  among 
men  that  human  relationships  have  something  answering  to 
them  in  that  higher  world  from  which  they  suppose  their 
heroes  to  have  descended.  Thirdly,  they  seem  to  have  been 
sure,  that  unless  the  superior  beings  were,  not  only  related  to 
each  other,  but  in  some  way  related  to  them,  their  mere  pro- 
tection would  be  worth  very  little;  they  would  not  confer  the 
kind  of  benefits  which  the  inferior  asks  from  them.  These  are 
the  obvious  common-place  inferences  from  these  stories,  which 
suggest  themselves  to  every  one;  they  lie  upon  the  surface  o£^~ 
them. 

And  if  so,  it  can  hardly,  I  think,  be  taken  for  granted  that 
we  are  showing  our  respect  for  the  instincts  and  conscience 
of  humanity,  when  we  assume  that  all  the  beings  who  have 
done  it  good,  have  not  come  from  any  mysterious  source,  but 
have  belonged  to  the  common  stock  of  human  beings;  that 
they  have  not  been  given  to  us,  but,  as  to  all  their  most  trans- 
cendent qualities,  created  by  us ;  that  their  relation  to  us  was 


t)2  THE  GODS,  HOW  CREATED  BY  MEN. 

the  ordinary  one  of  flesh  and  blood  ;  that  we  have  glorified 
and  deified  them.  These  conclusions  may  be  true,  but  they 
cannot  follow  from  those  facts  to  which  our  attention  has 
been  so  eagerly  directed :  those  facts  would  seem  at  first 
sight  to  contradict  them.  I  am  quite  willing,  however,  to  ac- 
knowledge that  there  is  evidence,  and  very  strong  evidence,  in 
favor  of  these  opinions, — evidence  which  has  made  it  most 
natural  that  serious  thinkers  should  adopt  them  in  this  day 
and  in  other  days.  Notwithstanding  that  strong  conviction  in 
the  minds  of  men,  that  their  gods  and  heroes  must  be  of  a  na- 
ture higher  than  their  own,  and  that  any  sympathy  with  them 
must  imply  a  condescension  and  stooping,  it  is  quite  manifest 
that  they  have  imputed  to  the  beings  whom  they  reverenced, 
all  the  habits  and  peculiarities  of  the  countries  and  races  to 
which  they  belonged,  all  that  was  morbid  in  their  own  tem- 
peraments, much  of  the  corruption  and  debasement  to  which 
they  know  themselves  to  be  prone.  About  this  point  then 
no  dispute.  It  is  no  new  discovery,  but  one  which  Gn 
sages  made  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  about  their 
own  countrymen.  It  was  the  secret  of  the  unbelief  of  so  many 
of  them.  It  led  a  few  into  the  strongest  and  most  settled 
assurance,  that  there  was  that  which  man  did  not  create,  and 
to  which  he  must  be  conformed.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that, 
from  age  to  age,  the  tendency  went  on  increasing,  till  the  gods 
became  different  from  the  mass  of  men  only  by  being  the 
models  and  ideals  of  a  superhuman  malice  and  cruelty. 

But  there  is  a  chapter  of  human  experience  which  we  have 
not  yet  looked  into.  It  is  that  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  last 
Essay.  We  found  a  man  broilght  into  a  condition  of  physical 
and  moral  pain  and  weakness  which  deprived  him  of  all  advan- 
tages he  might  once  have  possessed,  and  confessing  himself  on 
a  level  with  the  most  wretched  of  human  creator  There 
carne  to  this  man,  so  smitten,  a  consciousness  of  evil,  which 
was  perfectly  new  to  him.      This  consciousness  was  strangely 


REFERENCE  TO  THE  LAST  ESSAY.  63 

mixed  with  the  assurance  that  there  was  a  righteousness 
which  he  could  actually  claim  as  his.  The  righteousness  was 
more  deep  than  the  evil.  At  times  he  felt  that  it  was  even 
more  his  own,  though  that  seemed  bone  of  his  bone  and  flesh 
of  his  flesh.  This  conflict  in  his  mind  was  connected  with  ano- 
ther. He  could  not  deny  that  his  suffering  had  come  from 
God ;  but  yet  he  felt  it  to  be  a  plague,  an  evil,  an  enemy.  It 
spoke  to  him  of  bondage  and  oppression.  Could  God  be  the 
oppressor?  This  man,  we  found,  was  gradually  taught  that 
God  was  not  his  oppressor,  but  the  defender  of  his  cause,  the 
asserter  of  his  righteousness.  How  was  this  1  "Was  he  then 
righteous?  Was  he  not  the  sinner  he  had  believed  himself  to 
be?  Yes  ;  it  was  then  first  that  he  felt  himself  to  be  wholly  a 
sinner, — that  he  became  ashamed  of  all  the  pleas  he  had  put 
forth  on  his  own  behalf.  But  there  was,  in  some  nrysterious 
manner,  a  Redeemer, — an  actual  person  connected  with  him, 
— one  who  he  was  sure  lived,  one  who  was  at  the  root  of  his 
being, — one  in  whom  he  was  righteous. 

I  tried  to  show,  not  from  a  particular  sentence,  but  from  the 
context  of  the  book,  that  this  was  Job's  experience.  I  tried 
to  show  further,  that  Job  was  not  a  man  unlike  other  men, 
placed  under  rare  and  peculiar  conditions,  w7hich  enabled  him 
to  ascertain  certain  facts  as  true  for  himself,  which  are  not 
true  for  his  race ;  but  that  by  hard  discipline,  he  was  drawn 
out  of  that  which  was  local  and  individual,  brought  to 
the  apprehension  of  that  which  is  human  and  universal)!  tried 
to  show  that  any  other  hypothesis  is  inconsistent  with  our  rev- 
erence for  the  book  of  Job  as  part  of  the  canon  of  Scripture, 
equally  inconsistent  with  the  testimonies  which  have  been 
borne  to  its  truthfulness  by  people  of  the  most  various  charac- 
ters, and  in  the  most  dissimilar  circumstances.  If  so,  the 
Avenger  or  Redeemer  whom  Job  confessed  was  not  a  Re- 
deemer, but  the  Redeemer;  not  one  of  those  who  came  down 
from  time  to  time,  out  of  some  unknown  world  of  light,  to 


64  THE  SON  OF    GOD. 

scatter  some  portion  of  the  world's  darkness,  but  the  actual 
source  of  light ;  not  one  of  those  who  here  and  there  puts 
down  one  of  the  earth's  oppressors,  but  the  asserter  of  marCs 
right  against  the  oppressor  of  man.  He  cannot  be  one  of 
those  whom  men  have  ealled  into  existence,  and  invested  With 
the  qualities  which  belongto  them  as  members  of  some  particu- 
lar race  or  locality.  The  sufferer  has  been  compelled  to  feel 
himself  simply  a  man.  All  accidents  are  nothing  to  him  now. 
[(  he  has  not  hold  of  a  substance,  he  must  perish  in  his  despair. 

Such  are  the  results  at  which  we  have  arrived  already.  But 
if  that  part  of  the  story  is  true, — and  no  part  of  it  can  be  true 
if  that  is  not, — which  represents  (iod  as  Himself  discovering 
to  the  innermost  heart  and  spirit  of  the  man  his  righteousm 
as  well  as  his  sin, — the  Avenger  as  well  as  the  oppressor, — 
the    question    must   have  forced  itself  upon   Job,  and  for 

if  upon  us:  Is  this  Redeemer,  so  closely  connected  with 
the  human  sufferer,  not  connected  also  with  that  divine  In- 
structor who  answered  him  out  of  the  whirlwind  ?  Was  this 
righteousness  which  .lob  perceived,  not  the  righteousness  of 
God  Himself?  Was  He  as  widely  separated  from  His  crea- 
ture as  ever  ?  AVas  there  no  meaning  in  the  assertion  that 
one  was  the  image  of  the  other  ?  What  did  all  this  history  of 
a  struggle  signify,  if  that  assertion  was  false?  Why  had  .Job 
cared  to  know  the  mind  and  purpose  of  his  Maker  ?  Why 
had  he  that  sense  of  separation  from  Him — that  longing  to 
plead  with  Him  ?  Whence  came  that  cry  for  a  Daysman  be- 
tween them  ? 

If  the  Lord  and  Redeemer  whom  Job,  and  thousands  be- 
sides Job,  in  that  day  and  in  all  days,  in  that  country  and  in 
all  countries,  felt  after  and  found,  explains  to  us  those  many 
lords  and  redeemers,  whom  men  in  different  places  and  ages 
have  dreamed  of  or  hoped  for,  may  not  He  also  explain  tin 
many  sons  of  God  of  whom  I  have  been  speaking  here  ?  [May 
not  this  be  the  great  radical  experience  which  interprets  those 


NOT  YET  INCARNATE.  65 

superficial  experiences ;  the  great  universal  experience  which 
interprets  those  partial  ones?  Job  could  not  think  of  this 
Daysman,  near  as  He  was  to  his  very  being,  except  as  one 
who  had  come  to  Him, — who  had  stooped  to  him, — who  be- 
longed to  a  world  of  mystery.  Job  could  not  think  of  Him 
except  as  related  to  the  Invisible  Lord  of  all.  Job's  most 
intimate  conviction  was  that  He  was  related  to  himself. 
These  are  the  conditions  that  meet  in  all  those  dreams  of 
demigods  and  heroic  men  which  mythology  presents  us  with. 
But  here  are  not  the  causes  which  make  those  dreams  local, 
temporary,  artificial.  It  is  from  the  One  Being,  the  Lord  of 
the  spirit  of  all  flesh,  that  this  Son  of  God  must  have  come. 
He  must  be  spiritual  like  that  Being ;  for  it  is  the  spirit  and 
not  the  sense  of  the  suiferer,  which  confesses  Him.  And 
whatever  righteousness  and  goodness  are  perceived  by  the 
erring,  trusting,  broken-hearted  penitent  to  be  in  the  One, — 
speaking  to  his  sorrows  and  wants, — must  be  the  image  and 
reflex  of  an  absolute  righteousness  and  grace  in  the  other, 
which  he  could  only  adore. 

Many  readers  fancy  that  wrhen  we  speak  of  a  Person  who  is 
at  once  divine,  and  the  ground  of  humanity,  we  must  be  assum- 
ing an  Incarnation.  I  have  not  yet  touched  that  doctrine ; 
what  I  am  saying  here  has  no  reference  to  it.  \jOhristian  theo- 
logy does  not  speak  of  an  Incarnation,  till  it  has  spoken  of  "  an 
only-begotten  Son,  begotten  of  his  Father  before  all  worlds,  of 
one  substance  with  Him."jThese  words,  though  we  unite  so 
often  in  pronouncing  them,  and  though  in  former  times  they 
were  the  strength  and  nourishment  of  confessors  and  martyrs, 
have  come,  in  modern  days,  to  be  regarded  as  mere  portions 
of  a  school  divinity,  wrhich  learned  men  must  maintain  by  subtle 
arguments  and  an  army  of  texts ;  which  ordinary  men  are  to 
receive  implicitly,  because  it  is  dangerous  to  doubt  them ;  but 
which  have  no  hold  upon  our  common  daily  life,  which  can  be 
tested  by  no  experience,  which  those  who  are  busy  with  reli- 


66  MYSTERIES  PRACTICAL. 

gious  feelings  and  states  of  mind  will  pass  by  with  indifference, 
as  not  concerning  vital  godliness. 

We  owe  it  to  these  objectors  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  (and  this 
surely  ought  to  convince  us  how  faithless  and  heartless  our  dread 
of  any  objections  is,  and  how  much  we  are  fighting  against  God, 
when  we  try  to  suppress  them,)  we  owe  it  to  them  that  this  delu- 
sion has  been  scattered,  or  must  soon  be  scattered;  and  that  th< 
truth.-  compelled  to  come  forth  from  amidst  the  cobwebs 

in  which  we  have  left  them,  to  prove  that  they  can  bear  the 
open  day,  and  that  they  bring  a  more  glorious  sunlight  with 
them,  which  may  penetrate  into  all  the  obscurest  caverns  of 
human  thoughts  and  fears.  W  we  take  the  Apostle  St.  John 
a  our  Liuide,  we  shall  find  that  those  mysteries, from  which  we 
have  shrunk  back,  as  if  they  must  rob  us' of  all  simple  and 
childlike  faith,  arc  the  preservers  of  simplicity  in  thought,  in 
word,  in  act,  from  the  innumerable  temptations  to  artifice  and 
falsehood  which  beset  religious  men.  not  less,  but  more,  than 
others;  that  they  can  set  us  free  from  a  host  of  vulgar  earth- 
born  notions  and  superstitions,  which  we  have  adopted  from  the 
cloister  or  the  crowd  into  our  Christian  dialect  and  practice; 
["that  they  can  show  how  the  one  fundamental  truth  of  God's 
Move  and  charity  makes  all  other  facts, — those  belonging  to  tl 
most  inward  discipline  of  the  heart,  those  concerning  t\m  most 
outward  economy  of  the  world, — sacred  and  luminous  J 

I  can  only  see  at  a  great  distance,  that  this  must  be  so  and 
is  so,  and  can  hope  and  pray  that  God  may  raise  up  some 
in  these  latter  days  of  the  world  who  will  help  us  to  feel  that 
it  is  so.  The  utmost  I  shall  attempt  now  is,  to  say  a  few 
words  on  one  passage  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  in  which  our  Lord 
points  out,  as  it  seem  to  me,  in  a  wonderful  manner,  the  relation 
in  which  a  belief  in  the  Son  of  God  stands  to  that  conscious- 
ness of  bondage  which  is  inseparable  from  the  consciousness 
of  sin. 

If  I  traced  in  this  passage  any  allusion   to  a  belief  in  His 


THE  SON  OVER  HIS  OWN  HOUSE.  67 

Incarnation  or  to  that  Passion  which  had  not  yet  taken  place 
I  should  not  quote  it.  But  the  only  way  in  which  the  words 
bear  upon  the  first  of  these  subjects  is  this :  they  were  ad- 
dressed to  certain  Jews  who  had  believed  on  Christ  as  a  teacher, 
as  a  man  standing  visibly  before  them.  He  desired  to  lead 
them  into  a  higher  and  better  faith,  the  one  which  true  men 
had  held  before  He  was  born  into  the  world,  the  only  one 
which  could  sustain  any  after  He  had  left  it.  He  had  said  to 
those  Jews  who  believed  on  Him,  "  If ye  continue  in  my  ivord, 
then  are  ye  my  disciples  indeed,  and  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and 
the  truth  shall  maize  you  free.''''  They  answered,  u  We  are 
Abraham \s  children ;  ive  were  never  in  bondage  to  any  man. 
How  say  est  thou  then,  Ye  shall  be  made  free  V  A  strange 
question  for  men  who  were  looking  so  earnestly  for  a  deliverer 
from  the  Roman  yoke,  and  yet  one  which  had  a  good  mean- 
ing in  it.  They  were  certain  that  in  some  way  or  other  the 
privilege  of  being  Abraham's  children  was  the  gift  of  a  higher 
freedom,  a  nobler  citizenship,  which  the  Caesars  could  not  take 
from  them.  Perhaps  it  was  this.  Perhaps  our  Lord  came 
to  show  them  hoiv  it  was  this.  But  in  the  mean  time,  there 
was  a  plain  staring  fact  which  they  must  admit.  Whether  they 
were  Abraham's  children  or  not,  they  had  committed  sin;  they 
felt  and  knew  that  they  had.  And  that  sin  did  make  them 
bondsmen.  They  were  under  a  yoke,  a  heavy  one  to  each  of 
them,  however  he  might  slight  his  subjection  to  the  emperor, 
however  little  that  might  practically  or  individually  gall  him. 
His  will  had  a  master ;  he  confessed  it  in  a  thousand  ways ; 
he  continually  pleaded  its  subjection  as  an  excuse  for  doing 
wrong  acts,  for  not  doing  right  ones.  It  was  better  simply  to 
own  the  fact  than  to  dissemble  it.  To  own  it  was  the  begin- 
ning  of  emancipation.  "For  the  servant  abideth  not  in  the 
house  forever,  but  the  Son  abideth  ever?''  Over  that  house  of 
theirs,  not  made  wTith  hands,  there  was  a  Son  actually  ruling, 
a  Son  of  God.     To  Him  the  house  belonged,  not  to  the  poor 


68  PRAYER  TO  THE  SON  OF    GOD. 

slave  who  fancied  it  was  his.  Let  him  once  confess  the  true 
Lord  of  it,  let  him  once  give  up  his  own  imaginary  claim  of 
dominion,  which  was  submission  to  a  real  servitude,  and  his 
chains  would  drop  off.  u  For  if  the  Sun  shall  make  you  free, 
then  are  ye  free  indeed"  All  other  attempts  to  shake  oil'  the 
yoke  from  your  wills,  make  it  harder  and  heavier.  In  the  cou- 
pon that  a  Son,  an  actual  Son  of  God  is  your  Lord,  lies  the 
secret  of  freedom.  This  is  the  true  Hercules  who  takes  Pro- 
metheus from  his  rock,  and  shiys  the  vulture  that  is  preying 
upon  him.  This  is  the  deliverer  of  each  man,  because  He  is 
the  deliverer  of  mankind. 

I  beliuve  there  never  has  been,  is  not,  nor  will  be,  any  other 
way  of  asserting  freedom  or  of  preserving  it  than  this.  And 
I  do § believe  that  God  is  leading  us  by  strange  and  hidden 
paths,  to  seek  for  this  freedom  and  to  find  it.  ^Lany  a  heart, 
I  trust,  which  shrinks  back  from  our  teaching,  and  perhaps 
thinks  that  we  are  binding  grievous  chains  on  men's  necks,  is 
yet  praying  this  prayer  : 

"  Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace, 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove  ; 


u  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why; 
He   thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die  ; 
And  Thou  hast  made  him  :  Thou  art  just. 

"  Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 

The  highest,  holiest  manhood,  Thou  : 

Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how  ; 

Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine. 

M  Our  little  systems  have  their  day ; 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be : 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they."* 

*  "  In  Memoriam,"  opening  verses. 


REVELATION  NOT  SYSTEM.  69 

Yes !  it  is  deeply  and  eternally  true  that  "  Thou,  0  Lord 
art  more  than  they."     And  therefore  it  becomes  us  most  ear- 
nestly, for  the  sake  of  our  fellow-men  and  of  all  the  thoughts 
and  doubts  which  are  stirring  in  them  so  mightily  at  this  time, 
not  to  let  the  faith  in  an  actual   Son  of  God  be  absorbed  into 
any  religious  or  philosophical  theories  or  abstractions.     When 
we  lose  that,  we  lose  all  hope  of  freedom ;  our  own  conceits 
become  our  masters,  and  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  any  ingenious 
and  skilful  combiner,  who  can  put  those  conceits  into  a  system; 
we   become  liable  for  a  time  to  all  the  caprices  and  fantasies 
of  the  age  in  which  we  live  ;  we  shall  probably  sink  at  last  into 
the  implicit  credence  which  we  suppose  to  be  the  characteristic 
of  ages  that  are  past.      Let  us  look,  therefore,  courageously 
at  the  popular  dogma,  that  there  are  certain  great  ideas  float- 
ing in  the  vast  ocean  of  traditions  which  the  old  world  exhibits 
to  us,  that  the  Gospel  appropriated  some  of  these,  and  that 
we   are   to   detect   them  and    eliminate    them  from    its    own 
traditions.      We  have  found  these  great  ideas  floating  in  that 
vast  sea ; — the  idea  of  an  Absolute  God,  the  idea  of  a  Son 
of  God,  who  has  close  and  intimate  relations  with  men  as  their 
Lord  and  their  Deliverer.      We  have  found  that  these  ideas 
demand  to  be  substantiated  ;  that  all  mischief,  confusion,  mate- 
rialism, surrounded  them  when  they  became  the  creatures  of 
men's  fancy,  liable  to   be  altered,  disturbed,  divided,  at  their 
pleasure.     What  we  ask  for,  is — not  a  System  that  shall  put 
these   ideas    into  their  proper  places,  and  so  make  them  the 
subjects  of  our  partial  intellects,  but — a  Revelation  which  shall 
show  us  what  they  are,  why  we  have  had  these  hints  and  inti- 
mations of  them,  what  the  eternal  substances  are  which  corres- 
pond to  them.      We  wTant  such  a  Eevelation  for  philosophers 
and  common  men,  for  the  prince  and  the  serf:  we  ask  if  there 
is  such  a  one  or  no :  we  beseech  the  Father  of  Lights,  if  He 
is  the  God  of  infinite  Charity  we  proclaim  Him  to  be,  to  tell 
us  whether  all  our  thoughts  of  Freedom  and  Truth  have  pro 


70  UNITARIAN  BELIEF  IN  A  SON  OF  GOD. 

ceeded  from  the  Father  of  Lies;  whether  for  eighteen  centu- 
ries we  have  been  propagating  a  mockery  when  we  have  said 
that  there  is  a  Son  of  God,  who  is  Truth,  and  who  can  make 
us  free  indeed. 

"  And  is  this  all  you  have  to  say,"  asks  a  grave  Unitarian  of 
the  older  school,  "  to  convince  me  that  I  must  believe  those 
myster  i  outrageous  t<>  my  reason,  which  you  confess  that 

even  persons  proud  of  their  orthodoxy  are  rather  eager  to  dis- 
miss from  their  thoughts  ?  That  is  really,  as  the  lawyers  say, 
your  case?"  I  will  tell  you,  friend,  why  I  have  said  thus 
much,  and  why,  on  this  topic,  I  mean  to  say  no  more.  It  is 
because  I  know  that  I  have  you  on  my  side;  because  you  are 
the  principal  evidence  for  what  I  have  been  maintaining.  You 
Dever  have  made  up  yourminda  to  abandon  the  name  '•'  Son  of 
God."  You  find  it  in  the  (Jm-jm-Is.  Four  drsire  to  assert  the 
letter  of  them,  against  what  you  suppose  our  figurative  and 
mystical  interpretations,  forces  you  to  admit  the  phra-  You 
not  only  do  so,  but  you  make  the  most  of  it.  You  quote  all 
the   pas-.  m   which   Christ   declares  that   the    Son   can  do 

nothii.  If,  that  the  Father  is  greater  than  lie,  as  deci- 

sive against  the  doctrine  of  our  creeds.    You  do  a  vast  service 
by  insisting  upon  them,  by  compelling  us  to  take  notice  of 
them.       They    are    not    merely    chance    sentences    carele.- 
thrown  out,  inconsistent  with  others  which  occur  in  the  same 
books.      You  are  right  in  affirming  that  they  contain  the  i 
to  the  life  of  Christ  on  earth.   You  have  si;  ted  the  thought 

to  us, — you  could  not,  consistently  with  your  scheme,  bring  it 
forward,  but  it  was  latent  in  your  argument, — that  what  lb; 
was  on  earth  must  be  the  explanation  of  what  He  is.  Never 
can  I  thank  you  enough  for  these  hints,  for  the  help  they  have 
been  tome  in  apprehending  the  sense  and  connection  of  th 
words  which  you  cast  aside.  If  the  idea  of  subordination  in 
the  Son  to  the  Father,  which  you  so  strongly  urge,  is  once  lost 
sight  of,  or  considered  an  idle  and   unimportant  school  tenet, 


PROTEST    AGAINST    IDOLATRY.  71 

the  morality  of  the  Gospel  and  its  divinity  disappear  together. 
You  have  helped  to  keep  alive  in  our  minds  the  distinction  of 
the  Persons,  and  that  I  believe  is  absolutely  necessary  that  we 
may  confess  the  unity  of  substance. 

But,  moreover,  you  have  borne  a  very  strong  and  earnest 
protest  against  Idolatry.  You  have  said  that  the  Christian 
Church  is  just  as  liable  to  idolatry  as  the  Heathen  world  was, 
and  that  its  idolatry  may  be,  probably  will  be,  of  the  same 
kind,  one  adopted  from  the  other.  Truths  most  needful  to  be 
uttered,  which  Christian  men  refuse  to  heed  at  their  peril  !  We 
Protestants  require  them  as  much  as  Roman  Catholics ;  we 
Englishmen,  as  much  as  Spaniards  or  Italians.  May  I  venture 
to  add,  You  need  them  also  ?  In  so  far  as  you  feel, — and  I 
am  sure  many  of  you  do  feel, — a  sincere,  fervent  admiration 
and  love  for  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  so  far  as  you  be- 
lieve him  to  be  the  wisest,  holiest,  most  benignant  Teacher  the 
world  ever  had,  are  you  not  in  danger  of  setting  a  man  above 
God?  For  I  think  the  dim  and  distant  vision  of  a  Being 
nowise  related  to  you,  as  far  as  your  theory  is  concerned, — 
though  by  a  happy  and  noble  inconsistency  you  delight  to  call 
lirm  Father, — cannot  by  any  possibility,  be  so  satisfactory  as 
the  thought  of  one  who  has  actually  done  good  and  wrestled 
with  evil,  and  in  some  sense  for  you.  When  you  can  fairly 
say,  we  are  contemplating  either,  that  is  the  fairer  object,  is  it 
not? — the  one  upon  which  you  would  rather  dwell,  even,  if  it 
must  be  so,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  ?  Well !  but  surely 
here  is  the  commencement  and  germ  of  all  idolatry.  For  you 
do  not  mean  by  idolatry,  plain  and  practical  people  as  you  are, 
the  mere  outward  service  of  the  temple,  the  bowing  the  knee 
to  a  certain  name ;  you  mean  the  deliberate  preference  of  the 
judgment  and  the  affections.  And  that,  it  seems  to  me,  you 
will,  and  must  bestow  upon  Christ  rather  than  upon  God,  if 
you  do  not  accept  the  doctrine,  that  He  is  God  of  God,  Light 
of  Light. 


72  ESCAPE  FROM  IT. 

And  do  not  think  that  it  is  possible  for  you,  or  for  any  man, 
to  stop  short,  at  this  point  of  idolatry.  I  think  I  could  show 
from  the  history  of  the  Christian  no  less  than  of  the  ancient 
world,  that  where  a  Son  of  Man,  simply  in  that  character,  has 
attracted  to  himself  the  reverence,  affection,  gratitude,  homage, 
which  are  not  paid  to  God,  those  sons  of  men  and  daughters 
of  men,  who  are  felt  to  be  less  removed  from  the  sins  and  im- 
purities of  ordinary  creatures  .than  lie  is,  practically  oversha- 
dow him.  I  intreat  you,  as  resolute  asserters  of  the  worship 
due  to  the  One  God,  seriously  to  consider  this  evidence,  as  his- 

y  presents  it  to  us,  and  then  seriously  to  compare  it  with  the 
evidence  which  your  own  hearts  present  to  you.  By  utter 
coldness,  by  becoming  merely  men  of  the  world,  by  forgetting 
Christ  habitually,  and  using  the  name  of  God  merely  as  the 
symbol  of  a  formal  worship,  yen  or  we  may  contrive  to  escape 
any  fervent  idolatry  cither  of  natural  or  human  objects,  because 
the  sleepy,  habitual,  unconscious,  all-pervading  idolatry  of 
Mammon  in  his  grossest  form  takes  its  place.  But  let  any 
earnest  sympathy  or  affection  be  awakened  in  us,  and  does  not 
the  clear,  definite  creature  supplant  the  dim  vision  of  the  Crea- 
tor, unless  in  some  way  or  other,  it  suggests  Him  ?  If  it  sug- 
gests Him,  how  and  why  ?  What  link  is  there  between  the 
human  love  and  the  divine  ?  What  and  where  is  the  Daysman  ? 
"Who  can  it  be — must  there  not  be  someone? — in  whom 
the  human  love  entirely  represents  and  images  the  divine? 

I  do  not  wish  to  press  this  argument  further,  lest  it  should 
become  too  satisfactory  to  your  reason,  before  it  has  satisfied 
your  conscienc  There  is  an  ascent  by  another  and  more  rug- 
ged road,  which  is,  I  believe,  generally  safer.  In  the  sad  hours 
of  your  life,  the  recollection  of  that  Man  you  read  of  in  your 
childhood,  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  the  great  sympathiser  with 
human  woes  and  sufferings,  rises  up  before  you,  I  know  ;  it 
has  a  reality  lor  you,  then  ;  you  feel  it  to  be  not  only  beautiful 
but  true.     In  such  moments,  does  it  seem  to  you  as  if  Christ 


THE   NEW  OPINIONS.  73 

was  merely  a  person  who,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  made 
certain  journey ings  between  Judea  and  Galilee  ?  Can  such  a 
recollection  fill  up  the  blank  which  some  present  grief,  the  loss 
of  some  actual  friend,  has  made  in  your  hearts  ?  It  does  not, 
it  never  did  this  for  you,  or  for  any  one  !  Yet  I  do  not  doubt 
for  a  single  instant,  that  a  comfort  has  come  to  you  from  that 
contemplation.  So  far  from  denying  your  right  to  it,  I  would 
wish  you  and  all  earnestly  to  believe  how  strong  and  assured 
our  right  to  it  is.  In  Him,  and  for  Him,  we  were  created ; 
this  is  our  doctrine,  or  rather  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul;  for  we 
have  said  little  enough  about  it.  If  so,  is  it  wonderful  that  He 
should  speak  to  you,  and  tell  you  of  Himself?  And  oh  !  if  that 
voice  says,  "You  may  trust  me,  you  may  lean  upon  me,  for  I 
know  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth — I  and  my  Father  are 
one  ;"  is  the  whisper  too  good  to  be  true,  too  much  in  accord- 
ance with  the  timid  anticipations  and  longings  of  our  spirits 
not  to  be  rejected  ? 

In  some  of  the  younger  Unitarians,  I  hope,  these  words,  (or 
if  not  these,  yet  the  thoughts  which  they  try  to  express,  in  some 
other  words  or  without  any,)  may  find  a  response.  I  do  not 
mean  in  those  who  have  learnt  to  talk  of  the  great  defenders 
of  humanity  and  human  rights,  the  Moseses,  the  Zoroasters, 
the  Jesus  Christs,  the  Mahomets,  the  Kobespierres.  Men  who 
put  forth  language  of  this  kind  to  grieve  their  mothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  insult  those  whom  they  pretend  to  call  their  brethren, 
are  not  in  earnest.  They  use  words  to  which  they  attach  no 
meaning.  They  may  be  Unitarians  or  Emersonians  to-day. 
After  a  little  time  they  may  become  stiff  Anglicans.  Then 
they  may  take  a  turn  with  Cardinal  Wiseman.  One  can  only 
hope  for  them  that  in  their  final  transmigration,  after  they  have 
had  a  glimpse  into  the  bottomless  pit  of  Atheism,  they  may 
become  little  children  again,  eager  to  learn  something,  if  it  be 
but  their  alphabet.  I  do  not  speak  of  these.  But  there  are 
many  who  are  confounded  with  them, — who,  in  a  kind  ofreck- 

4 


1^  HOW  THEY  TEND  TO  IDOLATRY. 

lessness,  adopt  phrases  nearly  akin  to  theirs,  or  who  take  that 
course  from  disgust  with  our  hard  speeches  and  narrowness 
of  heart, — between  whom  and  the  vain  coxcombs  with  whom 
they  are  associated  there  is  the  breadth  of  a  whole  heaven. 
"What  I  fear  for  them  is  a  great  and  vehement  reaction  against 
the  opinions  which  they  have  learnt,  not  in  orthodox  but,  in 
liberal  and  Unitarian  nurseries.  Instead  of  recognising  an 
impassable  chasm  between  the  human  and  the  divine,  these 
become  in  their  minds  utterly  confounded.  The  distinction 
between  them,  they  describe  as  impalpable,  impossible  to  di- 
cover ;  the  plague  of  orthodox  divinity  they  say  is,  that  it  has 
made  the  attempt,  that  it  has  used  hard  and  stiff  words  to 
define  the  boundary.  "  Of  course,  Christ  is  divine.  Why 
should  he  not  be  ?  How  can  so  beautiful  a  conception  as  that 
which  his  character  exhibits,  be  otherwise  than  divine?"  But 
the  vehement  struggle  against  their  earlier  faith  which  this 
mode  of  speaking  indica  lOWfl  also  how  strong  the  impres- 

>n  of  that  early  faith  has  been.  They  are  working  up  from 
the  earthly  ground  ;  they  can  recognise  no  basis  except  that ; 
they  conceive  Divinity  only  as  an  apotheosis  of  humanity. 

Now  here  is  and  must  be  the  beginning  of  a  very  extensive 
and  very  frightful  idolatry.  The  Straussians  are  perfectly 
right.  There  always  have  been  sons  of  God  ;  there  always 
must  be.  We  cannot  contemplate  the  world  without  them. 
They  always  must  stand  in  the  most  close  relation  to  us;  they 
must  leave  their  footprints  on  every  different  6oil.Q3uddhists, 
old  Greeks,  modern  Romanists,  we  of  this  utilitarian  time  and 
country,  have  all  traced  them  and  confessed  them.  The  temp- 
tation of  one  and  all  has  been,  by  measuring  and  comparing 
these  footprints,  to  form  an  abstraction  which  is  called  a  God, 
and  which  may  be  anything,  everything,  nothing.  The  witness 
in  all  these  hearts  has  been — It  cannot  be  so  that  we  arrive  at 
Divinity.  These  must  be  the  sons  of  a  God.  An  abstraction' 
a  generalization,  cannot  be  their  Father/"} 


TRANSITION  TO  THE  NEXT  ESSAY.  75 

"  The  witness  of  all  these  hearts  !  Why  that  is  your  old 
orthodox  dogma,  against  which  we  have  been  all  our  lives  pro- 
testing !"  I  cannot  help  that.  You  can  help  embracing  that 
dogma.  You  can  continue  your  protest.  But  will  you  not 
think  a  little  of  the  other  alternative  ?  Will  you  not  ask  your- 
selves seriously  if  you  can  escape  the  worship  of  ten  thousand 
imaginary  Buddhas  and  demigods  ?  Have  you  courage  to  go 
with  me  into  the  yet  further  question,  whether  you  can  avoid 
the  acknowledgment  of  fleshly  beings  made  into  gods,  wTith  all 
their  infirmities  and  crimes,  if  you  are  not  prepared  to  confess 
that  there  is  an  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  who  has  been  made 
flesh? 


ESSAY    VI. 


THE  IXCAR NATION'. 

The  Sons  of  the  gods  in  Greek  mythology  can  scarcely  be 
separated  from  Daman  forms,  from  actual  flesh  and  blood. 
Those  mysterious  emanations  from  the  Divinity  which  the  Ori- 
ental spoke  of,  and  which  became  closely  connected  with  the 
later  Greek  philosophy,  shrunk  from  this  contact.  But  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  as  much  in  the  East  as  in  the  West,  de- 
manded Incarnations;  no  efforts  of  the  more  spiritual  and 
abstracted  priests  could  resist  the  demand.  If  you  consider 
the  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  which  speak  of  Angels  or 
Sons  of  God,  you  will  be  struck  with  a  resemblance  to  both 
these  conceptions,  and  a  difference  from  both.  They  are  per- 
sons, not  abstractions;  they  converse  with  human  beings  as 
if  they  were  of  the  same  kind;  no  clear  or  deep  line  is  drawn 
between  them.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  never  spoken  of 
as  assuming  flesh,  as  putting  on  any  vesture  of  mortality.  You 
know  not  how,  but  they  leave  on  you  an  impression  of  spiritu- 
ality all  the  more  strong  because  no  pains  are  taken  to  produce 
it.     Yet  it  is  not  an  impression  made  at  our  cost ;  we  feel  our- 

(76) 


THE  WORD    OF    GOD.  77 

selves  to  be  raised  by  what  is  told  us  of  them ;  if  they  are  spirit- 
ual, we  must  be  so  likewise.  For  this  reason,  the  Jew  had  no 
difficulty  in  acknowledging  one  higher  Angel,  one  Son  of  God, 
above  all  the  rest ;  who  yet  was  in  more  direct  and  continued 
communication  with  human  creatures  than  they  were  ;  a  Word 
who  spoke  to  prophets  and  holy  men,  drew  them  away  from 
the  phantoms  of  sense,  taught  them  that  they  were  spirits, 
inspired  them  with  cravings  for  the  knowledge  of  God.  Such 
a  Person  they  traced  through  their  Scriptures.  Those  per- 
ceived Him  most  who  entered  into  the  Scriptures  most,  and 
whose  own  minds  were  most  alive.  The  formal  Scribes,  who 
were  busy  in  framing  a  religion  about  God  from  the  Bible  and 
the  Elders,  might  never  discern  Him,  though  they  might 
expect,  some  day  or  other,  the  coming  of  a  great  King  and 
Messiah.  But  those  who  believed  that  God  was  speaking  and 
ruling,  who  had  some  vision  of  His  awfulness  and  absolute 
perfection,  who  yet  felt  that  He  had  made  men  in  His  image, 
and  meant  them  to  know  Him,  could  inquire  earnestly  how 
and  in  whom  He  governed  and  spake,  how  that  awfulness  and 
perfection  could  come  into  relation  with  creatures,  and  be  ap- 
prehended by  them.  They  did  not  confine  the  illuminations 
of  this  mysterious  Teacher  to  the  wise  of  their  own  land,  but 
they  believed  that  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  interpreted  His 
relation  to  God  and  to  the  souls  of  men  as  no  other  books  did, 
and  that  their  nation  was  chosen  to  be  an  especial  witness  of 
His  presence. 

But  when  the  voice  went  from  a  band  of  despised  men, — 
"  The  Word,  or  the  Son  of  God,  has  been  made  flesh,  and  has 
dwelt  among  us," — each  of  these  classes,  the  Oriental,  the 
Greek  sage,  the  learned  and  devout  Jew,  as  well  as  the  popu- 
lar idolater,  had  his  own  reason  to  be  offended.  Was  not  flesh 
the  very  seat  of  all  evil,  if  not  its  cause  ?  Was  not  the  great 
effort  of  the  wise  man,  to  disengage  himself  from  fleshly  appe- 
tites and  fleshly  illusions  ?     Had  not  the  Divine  Word  espe- 


78  THE  STRUGGLE   IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

cially  chosen  out  a  band  of  spiritual  men  to  apprehend  secrets 
which  the  multitude,  given  up  to  the  pursuits  of  the  flesh  and 
the  world,  must  remain  ignorant  of?  These  were  arguments 
of  prodigious  weight  for  all  who  had  pursued  the  deeper  wis- 
dom. The  traditional  worshippers,  Jew  or  Gentile,  did  not 
need  arguments.  The  force  of  habit  and  prescription  was 
strong  enough  without  them.  The  love  of  what  was  fleshly 
and  external  was  as  mighty  a  motive  with  these  for  rejecting 
the  new  message,  as  the  dread  of  it  was  with  the  others.  They 
were  told  to  turn  from  their  dumb  idols — and  the  Jew  was 
given  to  understand  that  the  rites  in  which  he  trusted  had  be- 
come his  idols — to  the  Living  God.  The  Son  of  God  was 
said  to  have  taken  flesh  that  He  might  reclaim  all  for  the  ser- 
vants of  His  invisible  Father. 

Accordingly,  the  chief  struggle  of  all  minds  in  the  first  cen- 
turies after  the  Church  had  established  itself  in  the  world,  v. 
against  this  belief.  I  say  emphatically  and  deliberately,  in  all 
minds,  for  the  conflict  was  just  as  apparent  amon^  those  who 
had  been  baptized,  as  among  their  opponents.  As  they  became 
less  alive  to  their  own  personal  necessities,  they  had  leisure  to 
contemplate  the  many  sides  which  the  Gospel  presented  to  the 
student  and  to  the  world — the  points  of  contact  between  it  and 
surrounding  opinions.  Then  this  and  that  teacher  arose  to 
show  how  possible  it  was  to  regard  Christ  as  one  of  the  ema- 
nations from  the  unseen  and  absolute  Essence,  one  of  the  stars 
which  had  penetrated  from  the  world  of  light  into  a  world  of 
darkness,  one  of  the  agents  of  a  good  Being,  who  had  come  to 
recover  elect  souls  from  fleshly  corruption,  and  to  make  them 
capable  of  the  highest  knowledge.  Then  more  accomplished 
teachers  traced  an  order  and  scheme  of  emanations  ;  assigning 
to  Christ  a  place  amidst  a  multitude  of  qualities,  energies, 
intellectual  or  physical  principles.  Then  the  modes  of  attain- 
ing the  higher  intuitions  were  duly  set  down  and  distinguished 
by  each  school  for  its  own  initiated  disciples.     But  in  every 


REASONS  AGAINST  AN  INCARNATION.  79 

one,  it  was  necessary  to  account  for  the  appearance  of  our  Lord 
in  the  world,  without  supposing  Him  to  have  been  actually- 
endowed  with  a  human  body.  The  connexion,  it  was  said, 
was  not  real  but  fantastic  ;  the  Christ  or  the  Son  of  God  had 
descended  for  a  while  into  the  body  of  Jesus  at  His  baptism, 
leaving  it  before  His  passion,  not  actually  participating  in  any 
of  its  infirmities.  By  some  means  or  other,  it  must  be  explained 
how  a  deliverer  could  come  among  men  without  being  one  of 
themselves,  without  being  associated  with  that  in  which  lay, 
as  these  teachers  held,  all  defilement. 

I  have  expressed  what  I  believe  were  the  three  maxims  com- 
mon to  these  various  and  dissentient  schools.  They  held,  first, 
that  it  was  possible  to  know  God  without  an  Incarnation ; 
secondly,  that  it  is  not  right  or  possible,  that  a  perfectly  good 
Being  should  be  tempted  as  men  are  tempted ;  thirdly,  that  all 
we  have  to  look  for,  is  a  deliverer  of  some  choice  spirits  out  of 
the  corruption  and  ruin  of  humanity,  not  a  deliverer  of  man 
himself,  of  his  spirit,  his  soul,  and  his  body. 

These  being  the  three  cardinal  dogmas  of  the  teachers  who 
departed  from  the  general  creed  of  the  Church,  the  convictions 
which  have  sustained  that  creed  cannot,  perhaps,  be  expressed 
better  than  by  reversing  these  propositions.  First,  We  accept 
the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  because  we  feel  that  it  is  impossible 
to  know  the  Absolute  and  Invisible  God  as  man  needs  to  know 
Him,  and  craves  to  know  Him,  without  an  Incarnation. 
Secondly,  "We  receive  the  fact  of  an  Incarnation,  not  perceiv- 
ing how  we  can  recognise  a  perfect  Son  of  God,  and  Son  of 
Man,  such  as  man  needs  and  craves  for,  unless  He  were,  in 
all  points,  tempted  like  as  we  are.  Thirdly,  "We  receive  the 
fact  of  an  Incarnation,  because  we  ask  of  God  a  Redemption, 
not  for  a  few  persons,  from  certain  evil  tendencies,  but  for 
humanity  from  all  the  plagues  by  which  it  is  tormented.  I 
will  take  these  points  in  their  order. 

1.  Rapt  devotees  who  have  lived  in  perfect  abstraction,  have 


f 


80  FAITH  WITHOUT  AN  INCARNATION. 

obtained  a  vision  of  a  cloudless  essence,  of  that  which  they 
felt  was  awful  and  infinite,  and  which  they  could  adore  in 
silence.  Thoughtful  and  earnest  seekers  after  wisdom,  by 
careful  study  of  all  common  things  which  are  presented  to 
them,  by  honest  meditation  upon  the  words  which  they  use,  by 
diligent  efforts  to  escape  from  the  appearances  of  the  senses 
and  the  prejudices  of  the  intellect,  have  been  enabled  to  con- 

s,  and  confidently  to  believe,  that  there  is  an  Absolute  and 
Eternal  substance  at  the  ground  of  all  things.  Suffering  men, 
tormented  by  pain  of  body  and  anguish  of  spirit,  have  per- 
ceived that  there  must  be  a  health  deeper  than  their  sickness, 
a  righteousness  beneath  their  evil  Are  we  to  slight  any  of 
these  disco\  .  or  not  to  reckon  them  true  and  divine?  Cer- 

tainly not.  Their  worth  is,  I  believe,  unspeakable.  But  why 
were  not  those  who  obtained  them  satisfied  with  them?  Why 
did  Heathen  Bl  tarn  baek  with  a  look  half  of  longing,  half 

of  loathing,  t<>  the  popular  legends?  They  saw  that  there  was 
in   them  a  wit  Of  the  presence  of  Guardians,  Broth. 

Fat  which  they  could  not  .part  with.     To  accept  th< 

clothed  in  all  the  tempers  and  tendencies  which  they  felt  to  be 
imperfect  and  distorted  in  themselves,  was  impossible  for  their 

son.  But  their  reason  demanded  a  standard  for  acts;  the 
grace  and  righteousness  which  they  saw  in  different  divided 
human  images ;  a  foundation  for  the  relations  upon  the  pre- 
servation and  purity  of  which  society  depends;  an  absolute 
Truth,  which  should  not  be  merely  dry  existence,  merely  an 
ultimate  Hercules'  Pillar  of  the  Universe,  but  living ;  such  as 
truth  is  when  it  comes  forth  in  a  guileless  person. 

St.  John  says,  "  We  beheld  Ills  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten 
of  the  Father,  fall  of  grace  and  truth"  Am  I  to  believe  this, 
asks  the  objector,  on  the  testimony  of  a  Galilean  fisherman,  or, 
for  aught  we  know,  of  some  later  doctor  assuming  that  guise  ? 
I  answer,  You  are  not  to  believe — you  cannot  believe — either 
fisherman  or  doctor,  if  the  assertion  itself  is  contrary  to  truth, 


CRAVING   FOR   ONE.  81 

to  the  laws  of  your  being,  to  the  order  and  constitution  of  the 
Universe  in  which  you  are  living.  They  may  repeat  it  till 
doomsday.  It  may  come,  as  it  did,  with  no  authority,  against 
the  weight  of  all  opinion,  breaking  through  the  customs  and 
prescriptions  of  centuries,  defying  the  rulers  of  the  world  ;  or 
it  may  come  clad  with  authority,  with  the  prescriptions  of  cen- 
turies ;  with  the  help  of  rulers  and  public  opinion ;  it  is  all  the 
same;  you  cannot  believe  the  words,  however  habitual  and 
familiar  they  may  be  to  you,  if  there  is  that  in  them  which 
contradicts  the  spirit  of  a  man  that  is  in  you,  which  does  not 
address  that  with  demonstration  and  power.  What  we  say  is, 
that  these  words  have  not  contradicted  that  spirit,  but  have 
entered  it  with  the  demonstration  of  the  spirit  and  of  power. 
Men  have  declared,  "  The  actual  creatures  of  our  race  do  tell 
us  of  something  which  must  belong  to  us,  must  be  most  need- 
ful for  us.  A  gentle  human  being  does  give  us  the  hint  of  a 
higher  gentleness  ;  a  brave  man  makes  us  think  of  a  courage 
far  greater  than  he  can  exhibit.  Friendships,  sadly  and  con- 
tinually interrupted,  suggest  the  belief  of  an  unalterable 
friendship.  Every  brother  awakens  the  hope  of  a  love 
stronger  than  any  affinity  in  nature ;  and  disappoints  it. 
Every  father  demands  a  love,  and  reverence,  and  obedience, 
which  we  know  is  his  due,  and  which  something  in  him  as 
well  as  in  us  hinders  us  from  paying.  Every  man  who  suffers 
and  dies  rather  than  lie,  bearswitness  of  a  truth  beyond  his 
life  and  death,  of  which  he  has  a  glimpse."  Men  have  asked, 
"  Are  all  these  delusions  ?  Is  this  goodness  we  have  dreamed 
of  all  a  dream  ?  this  Truth  a  fiction  of  ours?  Is  there  no 
Brother,  no  Father  beneath  those,  who  have  taught  us  to  be- 
lieve there  must  be  such  ?     "Who  will  tell  us  ?" 

What  St.  John  answers  is  this  :  "  No,  they  are  not  delusions. 
It  has  pleased  the  Father  to  show  us  what  He  is.  A  man  did 
dwell  among  us — an  actual  man  like  ourselves,  who  told  us 
that  He  had  come  from  this  Father,  that  he  knew  Him.     And 


82  ST.  JOHN  S  ANSWER  TO  IT. 

we  believed  Him.  We  could  not  help  believing  Him.  There 
did  shine  forth  in  His  words,  looks,  acts,  that  which  we  felt  to 
be  the  grace  and  the  truth  we  were  wanting  to  see.  We  were 
sure  they  were  not  of  this  earth  ;  that  they  did  not  spring 
from  that  body  which  was  such  as  ours  is.  We  should  have 
been  ready  enough  to  call  them  His.  But  He  did  not — He 
said  they  were  His  Father's,  that  He  could  do  nothing  of  Him- 
self, only  what  He  saw  his  Father  do.  That  was  the  most 
wonderful  token  to  us  of  all.  We  never  saw  any  man  before 
who  took  nothing  to  Himself,  who  would  glorify  Himself  in 
nothing.  Therefore,  when  we  beheld  Him,  we  felt  that  He 
was  a  Son,  an  Only-Begotten  Son,  and  that  the  glory  of  One 
whom  no  man  had  seen  or  could  see  was  shining  forth  in  Him, 
and  through  Him  upon  u 

Hut  why  must  we  think  that  this  person  was  more -than  a 
shrine  of  the  Holiest  1  why  should  we  speak  of  Him  an  the  One? 
why  should  this  name  of  "  the  Only-Begotten"  be  bestov. 
upon  Him  ?  Again  I  say,  Withhold  it  if  your  heart  and  con- 
e  bid  you  do  so.  But  do  not  deceive  yourseh  ^The 
question  is  not  any  longer,  whether  there  should  be  an  Incar- 
nation, whether  God  can  manifest  Himself  in  human  flesh;  but 
what  the  Incarnation  should  be,  in  what  kind  of  person  we  are 
to  expect  such  a  manifestation ;  or  whether  He  will  diffuse  His 
glory  through  many  persons,  never  gathering  it  into  one.  With 
respect  to  the  former  question,  the  Church  has  always  admit- 
ted, the  Apostles*  eagerly  asserted,  that  the  demand  wrhich 
they  made  upon  human  faith  was  enormous.  The  glory  of 
God  revealing  itself,  not  in  a  leader  of  armies,  a  philosopher,  a 
a  poet,  but  in  a  carpenter, — could  anything  be  more  revolt- 
ing ?  There  wras  no  shrinking  from  the  shameful  confession. 
It  was  put  forward  prominently;  it  was  part  of  the  Gospel 
which  wTas  preached  to  Jews,  Greeks,  Eomans.  And  it  was 
received  as  a  Gospel,  a  message  of  good,  not  of  ill,  because 
the  heart  of  man  answered,  "  We  want  to  see,  not  some  side 


THE    CARPENTER.  83 

of  earthly  power  elevated  till  it  becomes  celestial ;  we  want 
not  to  see  the  qualities  which  distinguish  one  man  from  ano- 
ther, dressed  out  and  expanded  till  they  become  utterly  unlike 
anything  which  we  can  apprehend  or  attain  to.  We  want  to 
see  absolute  Goodness  and  Truth.  We  want  to  know  whether 
they  can  bend  to  meet  us.  That  which  cannot  do  this  is  not 
what  we  mean  by  Goodness.  It  is  not  what  we  should  call 
goodness  in  any  man.  That  truth  which  belongs  to  a  few  and 
not  to  all,  is  not  what  we  mean  by  Truth.  The  truest  man  wTe 
know,  has  a  voice  which  commends  itself  to  all,  which  reaches 
even  the  untrue,  if  it  be  but  to  frighten  and  incense  him. 
#The  goodness  which  can  stodp  most,  which  becomes,  in  the 
,  largest  sense,  grace, — the  truth  which  can  speak  to  the  inmost 
heart  of  the  dullest  creature,  is  that  which  has  for  us  the  surest 
stamp  of  divinity." 

And  here  lies  also  the  answer  to  the  other  question,  "  Why 
should  not  the  Glory  of  God  be  diffused  through  many  images  ? 
why  must  it  be  concentrated  in  one  ?"     The  practical  reply 
which  Christendom  has  made  is :  "  That  it  may  be  diffused 
through  many,  it  must  be  concentrated  in  One.     That  there 
may  be  sons  of  God  in  human  flesh  ;  men  shining  with  the 
glory  of  God,  reflecting  His  grace  and  truth  ;  there  must  be 
One  Son  who  has  taken  human  flesh,  in  whom  that  full  glory 
dwelt,  who  was  full  of  grace  and  truth."     He,  so  we  have  pro- 
claimed, who  could  say,  My  Father  ;  could  say  Your  Father  • 
He  who  could  say,  He  has  sent  Me,  could  say,  So  send  I  you. 
And  Christendom  has  not  merely  put  this  doctrine  forth  in  a 
proposition.    She  has  been  able  to  establish  it  by  the  experience 
of  other  men's  truths ;  still  more  by  the  experience  of  her  own 
errors.  She  can  say,  "  Take  away  the  belief  of  the  one  incarnate 
Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man,  and   all  the  heroes   of  the   old 
wTorld  and  of  the  new7  become  merely  so  many  men  who  have 
earned  a  right,  by  their  superiority  to  the  mass  of  their  fellow- 
creatures,  to  despise  them  and  trample  upon  them.     Admit 


84  THE  SON  TEMPTED  AS  WE  ARE. 

0 

Him  to  be  the  centre  of  them,  and  they  all  fall  into  their  places ; 
each  has  had  his  separate  protest  to  bear,  his  appointed  work  to 
do.     Though  he  may  not  have  known  in  whose  name  he  was 
ministering,  his  ministry,  so  far  as  it  was  one  of  help  and  bl< 
iug  to  mankind,  so  far  as  it  implied  any  surrender  of  self-glory, 
may  be  referred  to  the  man,  may  be  hailed  as  proceeding  from 
Him  who  took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant."  On  the  other 
hand,   the   Church  can   say,  and   should  say,  with  the  deep- 
irimii??  ^n  Ihi  nth nr  linn  1,  Mvi  Pliimrli  iinn  rnjj  -milihilhi^flTTji 
humiliation,  "  Look    what   miserable  creatures   the  saints 
whom  I  have  boasted  of  have  become,  when  through  their  own 
crime,  or  the  crime  of  those  who  have  magnified  them,  it  has 
been  supposed  that  they  had   some  independent  merits,  that 
their  souls  or  their  flesh  had   some  sacredness  of  their  own. 
Look  through  my  whole  history,  and  see  whether  the  great 
confusions  I  have  wrought  in  the  world,  the  cruellest  oppi 
sioDfl  of  which  1  have  b         ailty,  have  not  been  caused  by 
my  desire  to  exalt  individual  men  into  the  place  of  the  Chri 
by  ray  efforts  to  accomplish  the  very  object  which  you  hope  to 
attain,  when  you  have  emancipated  yourselves  from  my  Creed/' 
2.  But  I  pass  to  the  second  point,  upon  which  the  teachers 
who  deny  an  Incarnation  are  at  variance  with  the  Apostles — 
and,  I  think,  with  the  conscience  of  mankind.     They  say,   "  It 
destroys  the  idea  of  a  Son  of  God,  to  suppose  him  in  contact 
With  the  temptations  of  ordinary  men."     We  say,  "  We  can- 
not know  II  im  to  be  the  sinless  Son  of  God,   except   Tie  was 
in  all  points  tempted  like  as   we   are."     This   is   that  side  of 
Christian  divinity  which  presented  itself  in  all   its  power  to 
Milton  ;  Paradise   was,   according  to  him,  regained  by  the  en- 
durance of  temptation.      His  strict  adherence  to  that  one  idea 
has  given  a  unity  to  his  second  poem,  as  a  work  of  art,  which 
wanting  to  its  more  magnificent  predecessor.     And  this 
unity  it  would  not  have  received,  if  the  soul  of  the  writer  had 
not  been  penetrated  and  absorbed  by  the  principle  which  it 
embodies.       Tn    it   lay   the    strength  and  vitality  of  the  age 


PARADISE  REGAINED.  85 

which  he  represented ;  especially  of  the  Puritan  part  of  it. 
Men  felt  then  that  they  had  a  battle  with  principalities  and 
powers  ;  the  test  of  the  Son  of  God  was,  that  he  had  entered 
into  that  battle,  and  had  overcome  in  it.  This  thought  might 
become  too  exclusive  in  their  minds ;  when  it  was  separated 
from  the  one  we  have  just  been  considering,  it  was  liable  to 
various  perversions  ;  but  I  can  scarcely  conceive  of  any  which 
has  stood  men  in  greater  stead,  or  which  we  can  less  afford  to 
dispense  with.  In  fact,  as  I  said  in  a  former  Essay,  it  seems 
to  me  that  our  actual  forgetfulness  of  it,  our  effeminate  timid- 
ity in  acknowledging  the  existence  of  an  Evil  Spirit,  our  desire 
to  represent  all  temptations  as  arising  out  of  our  nature,  has 
been  the  cause  of  more  superstitions,  and  more  dishonorable 
thoughts  of  ourselves  and  of  God,  than  any  other  of  our  popu- 
lar religious  habits.  But  it  is  inevitable  while  there  is  the 
least  reluctance  to  adopt  the  language  of  the  New  Testament 
respecting  our  Lord's  temptation.  We  cannot  and  dare  not 
think  that  there  is  an  actual  spirit  striking  at  the  deepest  root 
of  our  being,  striving  to  separate  us  from  what  is  good  and 
true,  if  we  do  not  believe  that  righteousness  is  mightier,  or  if 
we  suppose  it  has  only  a  distant  abstract  superiority  ;  not  one 
which  has  been  ascertained  in  an  actual  trial.  If  we  suppose 
that  the  Son  of  God  had  any  advantage  in  that  trial,  any 
power  save  that  which  came  from  simple  trust  in  His  Father, 
from  the  refusal  to  make  or  prove  Himself  His  Son  instead  of 
depending  on  His  word  and  pledge,  we  shall  not  feel  that  a 
real  victory  has  been  won.  And  thence  will  come,  (alas !  have 
come,)  the  consequences  of  supposing  our  flesh  to  be  accursed 
in  itself,  our  bodies  or  our  souls  to  be  subject  to  a  necessary 
evil,  and  not  to  be  holy  creatures  of  God,  made  for  all  good. 
It  is  needful  to  repeat  these  maxims  often  ;  for  the  habits  and 
maxims  w'hich  contradict  them,  are  presenting  themselves  in 
every  variety  of  form  and  application,  and  are,  I  think,  disturb- 
ing all  our  lives.     I  recur  to  them  now,  because  I  wish  to  put 


86  DISBELIEF  OF  CHRIST'S  TEMPTATION. 

that  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  which  is  so  often  denounced 
as  an  outrage  upon  reason,  conscience,  and  experience,  to 
every  possible  test  of  reason,  conscience,  and  experience.  If 
there  are  any  tests  besides  these,  I  do  not  ask  that  it  should 
be  tried  by  them  ;  these  should  not  be  declined  by  those  who 
are  continually  appealing  to  them.  Let  them  fairly  and  man- 
fully ask  themselves  whether  they  do  not  evade  either  some 
great  fact  of  daily  experience,  some  evidence  of  actual  misery 
and  evil,  or  else  some  sure  and  authentic  testimony  of  the 
heart  that  nothing  in  its  principle  and  constitution  can  be  evil, 
if  they  deny  that  there  has  been  One,  who,  in  our  condition, 
was  tempted  by  the  Devil ;  and  that  it  was  no  imaginary 
temptation,  but  the  real  one,  that  which  makes  others  real. 
Either  I  shall  resort  to  some  subterfuge  to  conceal  my  own 
evil,  or  I  shall  shrink  from  acknowledging  my  relation  in  hope 
and  in  sorrow  to  all  human  beings,  or  I  shall  invent  some 
wretched  sub^itute  for  the  Friend  whom  I  have  lost,  if  I  am 
too  refined  to  believe  that  there  is  one  who  showed  himself  in  my 
flesh,  to  be  a  sharer  of  all  Qod'fl  truth  and  of  all  my  danger. 

3.  This  refinement  in  the  Gnostical  teachers  had  the  close>t 
connexion  with  that  third  characteristic  of  theirs  to  which  I 
alluded, — their  belief  that  Christ  descended  from  some  pure 
and  ethereal  world,  to  save  certain  elect  souls  from  the  pollu- 
tions of  the  ilesli  and  the  death  which  was  consequent  upon 
them  ;  not  to  save  the  human  race  ;  above  all,  not  to  save  that 
which  was  designated  as  the  poor,  ignoble,  accursed  body. 

"J1  he  whole  Gospel  history  was  a  most  cruel  insult  to  the 
feelings  which  this  opinion  denoted.  Christ  is  represented 
addressing  himself  to  multitudes.  Those  selected  out  of  these 
multitudes  to  be  His  disciples,  are  ignorant  men,  not  better, 
not  more  spiritual,  than  their  fellows.  Those  who  gather  about 
Him  are  publicans  and  sinners.  He  heals  their  bodies.  He 
speaks  of  their  bodies  as  bound  by  Satan.  Pain,  disease,  death, 
are  treated  not  as  portions  of  a  divine  scheme,  but  as  proofs 


REASONS  FOR  DISCARDING   THE  GOSPELS.  87 

that  it  has  been  violated — as  witnesses  of  the  presence  of  a 
destroyer,  who  is  to  be  resisted  and  cast  out.  These  are  the 
startling  phenomena  of  the  Gospels,  subversive  of  their  credit 
and  character  with  all  persons  who,  on  any  grounds  whatever, 
religious  or  philosophical,  are  maintaining  an  exclusive  posi- 
tion, striving  to  separate  themselves  from  other  human  beings, 
or  wishing  to  disparage  animal  existence  as  the  only  way  of 
exalting  that  which  is  intellectual  or  spiritual.  The  traditions 
of  their  country  may  induce  some  of  these  to  suspend  their 
condemnation  of  the  documents, — nay,  even  to  express  unlim- 
ited belief  in  them.  Some  may  hesitate,  from  sympathy  with 
that  in  them  which  their  hearts  acknowledge  as  beautiful 
and  divine.  But  when  the  chain  of  authority  is  broken  for 
the  one,  when  the  other  find  books  appealing  more  directly  to 
their  tastes  and  temper,  as  being  dressed  in  the  fashion  of  their 
own  time,  it /will  be  seen  how  gladly  they  will  welcome  any 
mode  of  accounting  for  the  Gospel  narratives,  which  shall  not 
compel  them  to  accept  what  they  do  not  like  to  think  divine 
because  it  is  so  human.  And  here  again  it  is  to  the  great 
human  heart  that  theology  must  make  its  appeal.  That  has 
found  a  witness  for  the  Gospels  and  for  the  fact  of  an  Incar- 
nation in  these  offensive  passages.  That  has  clung  to  them 
because  it  demands  one  who  comes  into  contact  with  its  actual 
condition  ;  who  relieves  it  of  its  actual  woes  ;  who  recognises 
not  the  exceptions  from  the  race,  but  the  lowest  types  of  it,  as 
brethren  with  Himself,  and  as  the  children  of  His  Father; 
who  proves  man  to  be  a  spiritual  being,  not  by  scorning  his 
animal  nature  and  his  animal  wants,  but  by  entering  into  them 
— bearing  them,  suffering  from  them,  and  then  showing  how 
all  the  evils  which  affect  man  as  an  animal  haye  a  spiritual 
ground,  how  he  must  become  a  citizen  of  the  kingdom  of  hea- 
ven, that  every  thing  on  earth  may  be  pure  and  blessed  to 
him.  "  The  Son  of  God  was  manifested  that  He  might  des- 
troy the  works  of  the  devil ;"  this  is  St.  John's  summary  of  the 


88  REASONS  FOR  HOLDING  THEM. 

whole  matter.  He  revealed  the  Father,  and  so  in  human  flesh 
He  destroyed  the  great  calumny  of  the  devil,  that  man  has  not 
a  Father  in  heaven,  that  He  is  not  altogether  good,  that  Jle 
does  not  care  for  His  creatures :  He  submits  to  all  temptations 
in  human  flesh,  and  so  proves  that  man  is  not  the  s-ubject  and 
thrall  of  the  tempter.       He  in   human    flesh   delivered   spirits, 

lis,  and  bodies  out  of  bondage,  so  affirming  that  the  state 
into  which  the  devil  would  draw  them  is  not  the  state  which 
is  meant  for  them,  that  His  own  humanity  is  the  standard  of 
that  which  each  man  bears,  and  is  that  to  which  man  shall  be 
raised. 

The  evangelists  say  that  when  the  Son  of  God  was  to  be 
manifested  to  men,  there  did  not  come  a  great  prophet  to  argue 
and  prove  the  probability  of  an  Incarnation  ;  but  there  came 
a  prophet  preaching  in  the  wilden  and  saying,  "  Repent, 
for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.11  I  have  said  already, 
that  I  belie  h  a  call  to   repentance  is   the   true   way  of 

bringing  evidence  For  any  one  of  the  articles  of  Christian  theo- 
]<>l         When  the  hearts  of  the  fathers  are  tamed  to  the  child- 

:.  when  the  doctor  or  pharisee  feels  himself  on  the  level  of 
the  publican  and  the  harlot,  then  these  articles  come  forth  in 
their  own  native  and  divine  might;  then  the  objections,  which 
are  merely  the  creatures  of  fancy  or  of  pride,  are  scattered  as 
chaff  before  the  wind ;  then  those  deeper  objections,  which 
touch  the  heart  and  reason,  are  seen  to  affect  not  the  princi- 
ples themselves,  but  only  some  earthly  additions  to  them, 
which  have  weakened  and  subverted  them.  While  we  are 
frivolous,  exclusive,  heartless,  no  arguments  ought  to  convince 
us  of  Christ's  incarnation  ;  they  would  carry  their  own  con- 
demnation with  them,  if  they  did.  When  we  are  aroused  to 
think  earnestly  what  we  are,  what  our  relation  to  our  fellow 
men  is,  what  God  is, — the  voice  which  says,  "  The  Word  v 
made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,"  "  The  Son  of  God  was  man- 
ifested that  He  might  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil/'  will  no 


PREACHING  OF   REPENTANCE.  89 

more  be  thought  of  as  the  voice  of  an  apostle.  We  shall  know 
that  He  is  speaking  to  us  Himself,  and  that  He  is  the  Christ 
that  should  come  into  the  world. 

Let  no  Unitarian  suppose  that  these  last  words  are  pointed 
at  him, — that  I  suppose  he  has  greater  need  of  repentance  than 
we  have,  because  some  special  moral  obliquity  has  prevented 
him  from  recognizing  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation.  I  had  no 
such  meaning ;  I  was  thinking  much  more  of  the  orthodox.  I 
was  considering  how  many  causes  hinder  us  from  confessing 
with  our  hearts  as  well  as  our  lips,  that  Christ  has  come  in  the 
flesh.  The  conceit  of  our  orthodoxy  is  one  cause.  Whatever 
sets  us  in  any  wise  above  our  fellow-men,  is  an  obstacle  to  a 
hearty  belief  in  the  Man ;  it  must  be  taken  from  us  before  we 
shall  really  bow  our  knees  to  him.  I  know  not  that  if  He  were 
now  walking  visibly  among  us,  He  might  not  say  that  many  a 
Unitarian  was  far  nearer  the  kingdom  of  heaven  than  many  of 
us ;  less  choked  with  prejudice,  less  self-confident,  more  capable 
of  recognizing  the  great  helper  of  the  wounded  man  who  has 
fallen  among  thieves,  than  we  priests  or  Levites  are,  because 
more  ready  to  go  and  do  likewise.  I  cannot  say  that  this  might 
not  be  so ;  I  often  suspect  that  it  would  be  so ;  and  therefore  I 
certainly  did  not  intend  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  moral 
disease  at  the  root  of  their  most  vehement  intellectual  denials, 
is,  necessarily,  a  malignant  one. 

But  though  I  do  not  think  that  such  a  call  as  we  are  told 
went  forth  from  the  lips  of  John  the  Baptist,  to  prepare  the  way 
for  Christ,  is  less  needful  for  us  than  for  them,  I  should  be  far 
indeed  from  wishing  to  shut  them  out  from  so  great  a  benefit. 
We  all  want  it,  I  think,  for  the  same  reason.  When  St.  John 
explains  the  object  of  the  Baptist's  mission,  he  does  not  use  the 
language  of  the  other  evangelists.  He  says,  "  He  came  to  bear 
witness  of  the  LIGHT,  that  all  men  through  Him  might 
believe"   This  is  not  a  mere  equivalent  for  the  words,  "Repent, 


90  THE    LIGHT  WITHIN. 

for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  ,**'  but  it  gives  us  the 
innermost  force  of  those  words ;    it  takes  away  their  vague- 
ness;  it  shows  why  one  person,  as  much  as  another,  had  need 
to  hear  them.     "  There  ta  a  light  within  you,  close  to  you. 
Do  you  know  it  ?     Are  you  coining  to  it  ?     Are  you  desirous 
tli at  it  should  penetrate  you  through  and  through  ?     Oh,  turn 
to  it !     Turn  from  these  idols  that  are  surrounding  you, — from 
the  conftised,  dark  world  of  thoughts  within  you  !    Itwill  reveal 
yourself  to  you  !     It  will  reveal  the  world  to  you  !"     "  What 
do  you  mean?"  asks  the  well-instructed,  formally,  habitually 
religious  man  :  "  my  conscience,  I  suppose."     "  Call  it  that,  or 
what  you  please  ;  but  in  God's  name,  my  friend,  do  not  ch 
yourself  with  a  phrase.     I  mean  a  reality;  I  mean  that  which 
has  to  do  with  your  innermost  being;  I  mean  something  which 
does  not  proceed  from  you  or  belong  to  you;  but  which  is 
theirs,  searching  you  and  judging  you.     Nay  !  stay  a  moment. 
I  mean  that  this  light  comes  from  a  Person, — from  the  King 
and  Lord  of  your  heart  and  spirit, — from  the  Word, — the  Son 
of  God.     When  I  say,  Repent;  I  say,  Turn  and  confess  His 
presence.     You  have  always  had  it  with  you.     You  have  been 
unmindful  of  it." 

Such  words  would  startle  some  Unitarians,  but  not  more  than 
they  would  startle  those  who  are  settled  on  the  lees  of  a  com- 
fortable orthodoxy.  The  cries  of  "  Mysticism,"  "  Lore  im- 
ported from  the  Alexandrian  fathers,"  "  Utterly  inconsistent 
with  all  sound  modern  philosophy,"  "  Derived  from  our  own 
conceits,  not  from  the  Bible,"  "  Fenelon,  Madame  Guion, 
Jacob  Bohme,"  &c,  would  rise  just  as  loudly  from  one  as  from 
the  other.  The  teacher,  if  he  happens  to  know  anything  of  the 
persons  he  is  accused  of  copying,  may  tell  what  he  knows  ;  but 
he  will  do  better  if  he  delivers  his  message  simply  to  those  who 
have  need  of  it.  They  will  discover  in  themselves  whether  it 
is  a  poor  plagiarism  ;  they  will  know  whether  it  fills  them  with 
mystical  conceits,  or  scatters  those  conceits.     If  he  has  cour- 


MATERIALISTS.  91 

age  to  go  on,  he  will  find  a  response,  not  only  in  those  who  have 
been  told,  from  their  youth  upward,  that  the  voice  of  con- 
science is  Christ's  voice,  but  from* a  number  who  are  nominally 
and  in  profession  materialists ;  who  cannot  conceive  of  any  spi- 
ritual communication  whatsoever,  who  think  that  the  testimo- 
nies of  conscience  are  the  echoes  of  words  addressed  to  the  ear. 
For  theories  signify  little  when  the  question  is  one  of  fact  and 
moral  demonstration.  They  disappear,  as  they  do  before  any 
great  and  decisive  experiment  in  physics,  and  adjust  themselves, 
not  at  once,  but  gradually,  to  the  law  which  has  been  brought 
to  light.  And  a  materialist  who  has  been  honest  with  himself, 
has  sought  to  do  right,  and  has  not  used  phrases  which  for  him 
bad  no  meaning,  is  quite  as  likely  as  another  man  to  yield  to 
such  evidence. 

It  is  necessary  for  my  present  purpose  to  make  this  state- 
ment ;  for  I  cannot  disguise  from  myself  the  truth  that  there 
are  many,  not  only  among  Unitarians,  but  among  us,  who 
would  be  simply  bewildered  by  the  proposition,  "  Christ  took 
fleshy  What  Christ  ?  they  would  ask,  if  they  were  not  with- 
held by  some  fear.  "  Is  not  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Christ  ?" 
And  this  difficulty  is  not  relieved,  but  increased,  by  the  empha 
sis  with  which  the  ablest,  most  devout,  and  most  learned  divines, 
both  here  and  in  Germany,  are  dwelling  on  the  words,  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh."  I  do  not  mean  that  these  divines  care 
whether  or  not  that  precise  expression  occurs  in  the  Epistle 
to  Timothy ;  whether  the  line  in  the  0  can  be  detected  with 
the  aid  of  spectacles  or  not,  they  are  far  too  manly  and  too 
well  grounded  in  their  faith,  to  make  it  depend  upon  this  or 
any  other  philological  crux.  They  take  these  words  as  express- 
ing the  very  sense  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  New  Testament. 
I  do  not  think  they  can  be  stronger  in  that  persuasion  than  I 
am ;  but  I  cannot  help  perceiving, — and  a  consideration  of 
Unitarian  difficulties  has  especially  led  me  to  this  conclusion, 
— that  if,  in  their  eagerness  to  set  forth  the  manifestation,  they 


92  st.  johx's  method. 

take  no  pains  to  declare  who  is  the  manifester,  they  will  leave 
an  impression  on  a  number  of  minds,  the  very  opposite  to  that 
which  they  seek  to  produce.  They  will  lead  people  to  suppose 
that  the  Image  of  the  Holy  One  had  no  reality  till  it  was  pre- 
sented through  a  human  body  to  men,  or  at  least,  that  till 
then,  this  Image  had  no  relation  to  the  creature  who  is  said  in 
Scripture  to  be  formed  in  it.  By  this  means  the  whole  of  the 
Old  Testament  econom}T,  instead  of  being  fulfilled  in  the  reve- 
lation of  the  Son  of  God,  becomes  hopelessly  divided  from  it. 
But,  what  is  worse  still,  by  this  means  the  heart  and  conscience 
of  human  beings  become  separated  from  that  revelation.  It 
stands  outside,  as  if  it  were  presented  to  the  eye,  nut  to  them  ; 
as  if  those  who  saw  Christ  in  the  flesh  must  really  have  known 
liim  for  that  reason,  whereas  every  sentence  of  the  Gospel.- 
telling  us  that  they  did  not. 

I  conceive  the  method  of  St.  John  is  far  more  scientific,  and 
0   far    more   human    and   practical.     He  declares  to  us  the 
Word  Mid,  and  also  as  with   God;   as    Him    by  whom  all 

things  were  created;  as  Him  whose  Life  was  the  Light  of 
a;  whose  light  was  shining  in  the  darkness,  and  the  dark- 
SB  did  not  take  it  down  into  itself;  whose  Light  was  wit- 
nessed by  the  visible  teacher,  that  all  men  might  believe; 
Who  was  in  the  world,  though  the  world  knew  Him  not; 
Who  came  to  his  own  house,  and  its  inmates  did  not  receive 
Him;  Who  gave  those  who  did  receive  him  power  to 
become  sons  of  God,  being  born  not  of  ilesh  nor  of  blood,  nor 
of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God;  Who  at  last  was  made  flesh 
and  dwelt  among  men,  and  in  Whom  the  glory  of  the  Only- 
begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth,  was  seen.  Quite 
aware  how  strange  this  method  must  seem  to  many  of  our- 
selves, still  stranger  to  the  Unitarian,  I  have  yet  tried  to  follow 
it,  because  it  appeals,  I  think,  both  to  the  reason  and  to  the 
conscience,  and  because  I  should  be  very  inconsistent  if  I  sup- 
posed that  the  Light  which   lighteth  every   man  did  not  light 


OMNIPOTENCE  AND    OMNIPKESENCE.  93 

the  Unitarian,  or  that  he  may  not  come  to  it  and  discover 
whence  it  flows.  Nor  do  I  think  that  any  one  of  the  grounds 
upon  which  I  have  rested  my  defence  of  our  creed  con- 
cerning the  Incarnation,  will  be  entirely  unintelligible  to  him. 
1.  I  have  told  him  before,  that  I  think  he  is  exposed  to  a 
danger,  of  which  he  least  dreams, — that  of  honoring  the  Son, 
not  as  he  honors  the  Father,  but  above  Him.  I  would  now 
ask  him  seriously  to  consider,  whether  the  best  part  of  the 
honor  he  ever  has  paid  to  the  Father,  that  which  has  been 
most  real  and  akin  to  his  heart,  has  not  been  derived  from  the 
image  which  was  presented  to  him  in  Christ  ?  He  may  have 
used  some  large  phrases  about  Omnipotence,  or  Omnipresence. 
I  do  not  say  that  they  conveyed  no  meaning  to  his  mind.  But 
was  it  such  a  meaning, — so  deep,  so  penetrating,  so  satisfactory 
to  his  moral  instincts, — as  that  which  was  brought  to  him  by 
the  story  of  a  person  actually,  thoroughly,  inwardly  and  out- 
wardly, righteous  ?  If  the  quality  of  mere  power  became 
more  sacred  and  venerable  in  his  mind  than  that  of  righteous- 
ness, or  mercy,  or  truth,  will  he  not  have  suspected  himself? 
will  he  not  have  said,  "  I  am  yielding  to  a  disease,  I  am  bor- 
rowing my  notions  from  the  phantoms  of  greatness  and  glory, 
which  the  world  worships  ;  I  am  forgetting  the  moral  standard 
which  I  profess  to  set  up  ?"  And  if,  (as  I  think,)  power  is 
intended  to  command  a  reverence,  and  must  always  command 
it,  though  in  subordination  to  that  which  determines  its  ends, 
have  not  the  instances  of  calm  power,  recorded  in  the  Gospel, 
— of  Christ  ruling  the  waves,  for  instance,  or  feeding  the  mul- 
titude,— appealed  more  directly  to  the  faculty  which  receives 
that  impression,  and  bows  to  it,  than  any  such  mere  abstraction 
as  this  of  Omnipotence  ?  These  are  hints  which  I  should  like 
any  Unitarian  who  wishes  to  give  a  fair  account  to  himself  of 
his  own  emotions  and  convictions,  steadily  to  follow  out,  not 
minding  whither  they  lead  him.  They  may  not  lead  him  at 
once,  or  for  a  long  time,  to  accept  our  language,  "  of  one  sub- 


94  CHRIST  S  TRUTH  AND  POWER. 

stance  with  the  Father,"  he  may  make  a  great  many  attempts 
to  avoid  it,  by  speaking  of  a  Unity  of  purpose  or  of  will.  Bat 
if  he  once  comes  to  understand  himself  about  Unity  of  pur 
pose  and  will,  and  carefully  to  consider  what  that  involves,  I 
have  no  fear  but  that  he  will  by  degrees  understand  thoroughly 
what  the  Church  intends  by  Unity  of  substance. 

2.  Nor  do  I  fear  that  the  younger  Unitarian,  especially,  will 
discard  what  I  have  said  of  Christ  entering  into  our  tempta- 
tions, as  worthless  and  unmeaning.     AY  hat  I  do  fear  for   him, 
as  I  have  told  him  already,  is,  that  he  may  adopt  a  kind  of 
sentimental  talk,  very  prevalent  in  our  day,  about  struggles  and 
conflicts  of  the  spirit, — as  if  these  were  striking  phenomena  to 
observe  in  men  of  other  ages  who  are  entitled  to  our  patronage, 
and  in  a  qualified  sense  to  our  admiration,  for   having  pas* 
through  tempests,  which  we  can  contemplate  and  criticise  from 
a  calm  and  secure  height.     I  know   this  temptation;  I  do  not 
warn  them  of  it  as  if /were  on  a  calm  height  out  of  its  reach. 
It  assaults  us  all  continually  ;  I  cannot  tell  how  often  I  may 
have  yielded  to  it  while  writing  this  book.     But  I  can  testify 
that  the  only  escape  I  have  ever  found  from  it,  is  in  the  belief 
that  a  real  and  "  strong"  Son  of  God  encountered  the  enemy 
of  me,  and  of  all  the  men  who  are  living  now,  or    ever  have 
lived.  While  I  hold  fast  that  confidence,  I  cannot  suppose  that 
the  fight  which  our  fathers  had  to  fight  is  a  different  one  from 
ours.      I  cannot  fancy  that  I   have  acquired  any  position  or 
any  skill,  which  gives  me  the  slightest  advantage  over  them, 
or  on  the  other  hand,  that  our  circumstances  are  the  least  to 
be  deplored  ;  that  the  former  days  were  better  than  these.     I 
must  believe  that  the  struggle  becomes  intenser  as  it  approaches 
nearer  to  the  final  decision,  but  the  thought  of  that  decision, 
and  that  it  will  be  for,  not  against,  the  race  whose  nature 
Christ  took,  ought  to  make  us  more  trusting,  not  more  self- 
confident,  than  those  were  who  have  finished  their  course. 


CALVINISTS  AND  UNITARIANS.  95 

3.  If  I  dared  to  indulge  in  a  mere  argumentum  ad  hominem, 
I  might  hope  to  make  much  of  my  third  proposition  in  dis- 
coursing with  a  Unitarian.  He  is  pledged  to  hostility  against 
the  Calvinistical  theory  of  election ;  he  has  often  fraternised 
with  Churchmen  on  thr.t  ground.  But  I  think  that  he  and  the 
Arminians  of  my  own  communion,  hav«  been  equally  to  blame, 
for  the  course  which  they  have  taken  in  this  controversy. 
They  have  complained  of  the  Calvinist  partly  for  his  exclu- 
sions, partly  for  his  zeal  in  proclaiming  the  will  of  God  as  the 
sole  cause  of  man's  redemption  and  salvation.  Because  I  dis- 
like and  repudiate  his  exclusions,  I  would  follow  him  with  all 
my  heart  and  soul  in  that  proclamation.  If  man  is  held  to 
choose  God,  and  not  God  to  choose  man,  I  see  no  deliverance 
from  the  darkest  views  of  His  character  and  of  our  destiny. 
Some  of  the  Unitarians  appear  to  be  making  this  discovery ; 
at  least  I  judge  so,  from  a  very  impressive  sermon  by  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau,  on  the  words :  "  Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  cho- 
sen you?'1 

Before,  then,  we  enter  into  any  alliance,  offensive  or  defen- 
sive, against  Calvinism,  it  must  be  clearly  understood  that  we 
do  not  mean  this  side  of  Calvinism ;  for  that  is  as  much  pre- 
sumed in  the  doctrine  that  God  redeems  mankind,  as  in  the 
doctrine  that  He  redeems  certain  elect  souls  out  of  mankind. 
Every  redeemed  person  must,  according  to  me  as  much  as 
according  to  the  Calvinist,  refer  every  good  that  is  in  him,  that 
he  does,  that  befals  him,  to  the  Father  of  Lights, — must  con- 
sider his  will  as  freed  by  Him  from  a  bondage,  and  as  freed, 
that  it  may  become  truly  a  servant.  Nay,  so  strongly  do  I 
feel  this,  that  I  see  no  refuge  from  the  exclusiveness  of  some 
of  those  who  consider  themselves  very  moderate  Calvinists, 
especially  from  those  favorite  divisions  of  theirs  which  seem 
to  make  the  "  believer"  something  different  from  a  man,  and 
so  to  take  from  him  the  very  truth  which  he  has  to  believe, — 
but  by  recalling  the  strong  and  energetic  statements  of  the  ear- 


96  EXCLUSIVENESS  OF  VARIOUS  KINDS. 

lier  Calvinists,  respecting  the  one  root  and  origin  of  faith,  as 
well  as  of  right  acts.  But  this  is  not  all.  I  have  no  right 
to  denounce  the  exclusiveness  of  the  Calvinists,  unless  I  am 
willing  to  renounce  all  that  may  cleave  to  myself.  The  Unita- 
rian may  fairly  say  to  me,  ''Give up  your  Anglican  exclusive- 
ness  if  you  wish  me  to  think  you  sincere  in  your  complaints  of 
them."  And  I,  if  I  am  striving  to  do  so,  may  turn  upon  him  and 
say,  "  Give  up  your  Gnostical  exclusiveness,  your  Emersonian 
exclusiveness,your  notions  of  a  high  intellectual  election,  if  you 
wish  me  to  think  you  sincere  in  your  complaints  of  Calvinists  or 
of  Anglicans."  I  do  not  believe  that  we  shall  any  of  us  comply 
with  these  demands,  each  of  which  is  perfectly  reasonable  and 
righteous,  unless  we  heartily  and  unfeignedly  acknowledge  that 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  has  taken  the  nature  of  every  man. 
AVith  that  faith,  when  it  has  possessed  our  whole  being,  exclu- 
siveness of  any  kind  cannot  dwell. 

To  conclude.  I  should  be  content  to  put  the  whole  cause 
on  this  issue.  Let  it  be  considered  earnestly  what  has  made 
the  difference  between  the  belief  concerning  God  and  con- 
cerning Man,  which  has  prevailed  in  Christendom,  and  that 
which  exists  in  any  part  of  heathendom.  To  understand  the 
difference,  study  as  carefully  the  resemblances — all  the  dark 
and  horrible  thoughts  respecting  our  Father  in  heaven,  and 
our  fellow- creatures  on  earth,  which  exist  among  us,  and  which 
we  have  adopted  from  Heathenism.  Let  all  allowance  you 
please  be  made  for  varieties  of  races,  and  for  progress  of  civ- 
ilization, on  condition  that  you  are  not  satisfied  with  these  for- 
mulas, but  are  willing  to  regard  them  as  indications  of  facts, 
which  need  to  be  explained.  And  then  let  it  be  seen  whether 
the  belief  that  the  Jesus  Christ  set  forth  in  the  Gospels  is  the 
express  Image  of  God,  and  the  image  after  which  man  is 
formed,  has  not  been  the  secret  of  all  that  is  confessedly  high, 
pure,  moral  in  our  convictions ;  the  departure  from  that 
belief,  and  the  attempt  to  deduce  the  nature  of  God  from  some 


THE   TEST. 


97 


philosophical  generalization,  or  from  some  heroical  man,  or 
from  a  number  of  men,  or  from  ourselves,  has  not  been  at  the 
root  of  all  that  is  cruel  in  our  doctrine,  as  well  as  of  that 
which  is  most  feeble  and  base  in  our  practice. 


ESSAY   VII. 


CN  THE  ATONEMENT. 


It  will  be  evident,  I  hope,  by  this  time,  on  what  grounds  I 
object  to  the  so-called  Theology  of  Consciousness.  Not,  surely, 
because  I  am  not  anxious  to  observe  all  the  experiences  and 
consciousnesses  which  the  history  of  the  world  bears  witness  of. 
Not  because  I  do  not  desire  that  all  these  should  be  under- 
stood, as  they  can  only  be  understood,  through  the  conscience 
of  each  man.  Not  that  I  do  not  ask  of  theology  that  it  should 
explain  these  consciousnesses,  and  clear  and  satisfy  that  indi- 
vidual conscience. 

But  I  find  that  a  theology  which  is  based  upon  conscious- 
ness, which  is  derived  out  of  it,  never  can  fulfil  these  condi- 
tions. In  former  Essays,  I  have  tried  to  indicate  the  feelings 
and  demands  of  a  man  who  has  been  awakened  to  know  sin 
in  himself.  He  asks  for  deliverance  from  a  plague  which  seems 
part  of  his  own  existence.  He  asks  that  some  power,  which  is 
crushing  him  and  vanquishing  him,  and  making  free  thought  and 
action  impossible,  may  be  put  down.  He  is  in  despair,  because 
he  is  sure  that  he  is  at  war,  not  merely  with  a  Sovereign  Will, 
but  wTith  a  perfectly  good  will.  He  is  convinced  that,  in  some  way 

(98) 


CONSCIOUSNESSES.  99 

or  other,  he  has  a  righteous  cause,  though  he  is  so  deeply  and 
inwardly  evil.  He  thinks  a  righteous  Being  must  be  on  his 
side,  though  he  has  grieved  Him,  and  been  unrighteous.  He 
thinks  he  has  an  Advocate,  and  that  the  mind  of  this  Advo- 
cate cannot  be  opposed  to  the  mind  of  the  Lord  of  all,  the 
Creator  of  the  universe,  but  must  be  the  counterpart  of 
it.  He  thinks  that  the  true  Son  of  God  must  be  his  Redeemer. 
He  thinks  He  must  stand  at  some  day  on  the  earth,  to  assert 
His  Father's  righteous  dominion  over  it,  and  redeem  it  from 
its  enemies. 

Here  are  strange,  conflicting  "  consciousnesses,"  all  of  which 
are  actually  found  in  human  beings,  all  of  which  must  be 
heeded,  which  will  make  themselves  manifest  in  strange  ways, 
if  they  are  not.  The  consciousness  of  sin  will  lead  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  consequences  flowing  from  sin,  stretching  into  the 
furthest  future.  And  when  this  consciousness  tries  to  con- 
struct a  theology  for  itself,  those  consequences,  apprehensible, 
tangible,  material,  will  determine  the  character  of  the  theology. 
How  can  I  escape  from  these?  will  be  the  question.  Who 
shall  sever  the  consequences  from  the  cause  ?  The  conscious- 
ness that  the  Creator  has  linked  the  one  to  the  other,  suggests 
the  thought  that  pain,  suffering,  misery,  are  especially  His 
work,  the  signs  which  denote  His  feelings  towards  His  crea- 
tures. The  consciousness  of  a  tyrant  and  oppressor  leads  to 
the  supposition  that  He  is  that  tyrant  and  oppressor.  The 
consciousness  of  an  Advocate  leads  to  the  supposition  that 
He  may  be  the  instrument  of  delivering  us  out  of  the  hand  of 
the  Creator,  of  saving  us  from  the  punishment  which  the  Cre- 
ator has  appointed  for  transgression.  The  consciousness 
that  we  share  our  sin  with  our  fellow  creatures,  and  that  we 
are  obnoxious  to  a  punishment  which  belongs  equally  to 
them,  leads  to  the  reflection,  "  How  can  we  put  ourselves 
into  a  different  position  from  theirs  ?  how  can  we  escape 
from  the  calamities  with  which  God  has  threatened  them  ?" 


100  THE  SIN  OF    PRIESTS. 

What  I  wish  the  reader  to  observe  is,  that  in  each  of  these 
cases  a  notion  or  maxim  respecting  theology  is  likely  to  be  ge- 
neralised from  the  co?iscious?iess,  which  will  oppose  and  outrage 
the  conscience.  Building  on  his  own  ground,  assuming  all  his 
own  vague  and  contradictory  impressions  as  data,  the  man  of 
necessity  works  out  a  system  on  which  he  afterwards  gazes 
with  horror,  from  which  he  longs  to  break  loose,  which  he 
charges  priests  and  doctors  with  having  created.  No  doubt 
they  have  contributed  their  wicked  aid  to  the  fabric  ;  their  guilt 
is  heavier  than  that  of  the  poor  bewildered  creatures'  who 
have  consulted  them.  But  their  guilt  has  consisted  in  the  wil- 
lingness which  they  have  shown  to  create  a  religion  out  of  con- 
sciousnesses ;  to  endorse  all  the  conceptions  and  conclusions 
about  God  which  the  diseased  heart  fashions  for  itself, 
while  they  have  a  witness  within  them  of  truths  which  contra- 
dict these  conceptions  and  conclusions;  to  supply  intellectual 
links  which  may  fasten  together  what  would  be  loose,  incoherent 
fragmentary  fancies ;  to  devise  rules,  and  ethical  practices, 
which  may  meet  the  morbid  and  selfish  cravings  of  the  heart, 
and  be  justified  by  the  theory  the  understanding  has  moulded 
from  them ;  finally,  to  stamp  with  the  name,  dignity,  and 
sacredness  of  faith,  that  which  is  grounded,  in  great  part,  upon 
fear  and  distrust. 

I  believe  that  priests  in  all  lands  have  been  chargeable  with 
this  great  crime  of  accommodating  themselves  to  the  carnal 
notions  and  tendencies  of  those  whom  they  might  have  raised 
and  educated.  For  I  believe  they  have  had  an  intuition  of  a 
higher  truth,  which  it  was  their  calling  to  proclaim,  and  which 
alone  gave  substance  to  the  opinions  with  which  they  and  their 
disciples  disfigured  it.  I  dare  not  deny  that  this  crime  has 
been  greatest  in  the  priests  of  Christendom,  precisely  because 
I  hold  that  they  have  a  theology  revealed  from  Heaven,  which 
perfectly  satisfies  the  demands  of  the  human  heart ;  Which 
explains  to  men  the  contradictions  in  their  own  impressions 


THE  POPULAR  DOCTRINE  OF    SACRIFICE.  101 

and  experiences  ;  which  presents  such  a  God  as  the  conscience 
witnesses  there  must  be  and  is,  not  such  a  one  as  the  under- 
standing tries  to  shape  out  from  its  own  reflections  on  the  tes- 
timony of  the  conscience ;  which  shows  what  the  relation  be- 
tween Him  and  men  is,  what  the  cause  of  the  separation  be- 
tween Him  and  men  is,  what  He  has  done  to  establish  the 
relation,  to  destroy  the  separation. 

I  have  now  reached  the  subject  which  is  the  test  of  all  that 
I  have  been  saying  hitherto.  Those  who  cry  for  a  theology 
based  upon  consciousness,  which  shall  supersede  the  theology 
of  Christendom,  say  that  the  doctrines  respecting  sacrifice 
and  atonement  which  prevail  in  Christendom,  among  Protes- 
tants as  well  as  Eomanists,  prove  more  clearly  than  anything 
else  what  need  there  is  of  the  reform  which  they  seek.  "  These 
doctrines,"  they  say,  "  darken  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  in 
the  minds  of  Christians;  bewilder  their  understandings;  sanction 
the  most  false  conceptions  concerning  sin,  the  most  cruel  con- 
ceptions concerning  God.  The  conscience  of  human  beings  is 
in  revolt  against  them.  Civil  authority  owns  that  it  can  de- 
fend them  no  longer.  Ecclesiastical  authority  tries  to  defend 
them.  They  have  a  certain  public  opinion  on  their  side  ; — that 
which  has  resisted  in  every  age  every  great  moral  improve- 
ment, that  which  has  sustained  every  false  religion.  They  de- 
rive a  support  from  those  who  half  believe  them,  who  dare  not 
say  how  much  of  them  they  do  not  believe.  But  they  are 
doomed  :  texts  of  Scripture  will  not  preserve  from  burial  that 
which  is  already  dead.  No  appeal  to  the  verdict  of  centuries 
will  galvanise  doctrines  which  do  not  represent  our  convictions. 
We  must  have  a  theology  which  embodies  them,  or  none." 

On  tli is  point  I  join  issue  with  them.  I  say  that  they 
are  right  in  imputing  to  Romanists  and  Protestants  a  set  of 
notions, — some  of  them  common  to  both,  some  peculiar  to  each, 
— which  deserve  the  epithets  they  bestow  on  it ;  which  out- 
rage the  conscience,  which  misrepresent  the  character  of  God, 


102  ORDINARY  HISTORY  OF    ROMANISM. 

which  generate  a  fearful  amount  of  insincere  belief,  of  positive 
infidelity, — also,  I  think  of  immorality.  I  see,  with  them,  that 
these  notions  are  becoming  more  and  more  intolerable  to 
thoughtful  and  earnest  men  ;  that  those  who  are  neither,  often 
maintain  them  merely  because  they  do  not  care  to  look  at  them, 
or  to  question  themselves  about  them.  I  cannot  conceal  from 
myself  that  our  want  of  courage  in  saying  whether  we  regard 
these  as  parts  of  our  creed,  or  not,  is  leading  thousands  to  iden- 
tify them  with  it,  and  to  reject  it  as  well  as  them.  But  I  main- 
tain that  these  notions  are  not  parts  of  God's  Revelation,  or  of 
the  old  Creeds,  but  belong  to  that  Theology  of  Consciousness 
which  modern  enlightenment  would  substitute  for  the  Theolo- 

of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Church  ;  that  their  rise  can  be  dis- 
tinctly and  historically  traced  to  this  source;  that  the  protest 
on  the  part  of  the  conscience  against  them  in  other  days,  has 

n  a  confes>ion  of  its  own  inability  to  construct  a  Theodi- 

i,  a  claim  that  God  should  remove  its  confusions  by  reveal- 
ing Himself;  that  the  protest  of  the  conscience  against  them 
in  our  day  is  of  the  same  kind,  and  must  have  the  same  issue, 
if  it  is  not  unnaturally  silenced;  that  Christian  theolo: 
expressed  in  the  language  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Creeds,  con- 
strued most  simply,  is  a  deliverance  from  these  oppressive 
notions,  and  is  the  only  one  which  has  ever  yet  been  or  ever 
will  be  found. 

1.  The  account  which  I  have  given  of  the  way  in  which 
different  consciousnesses,  beginning  with  the  consciousness  of 
sin,  have  worked  themselves  out  into  a  scheme,  is  precisely 
that  which  has  been  given  over  and  over  again  by  liberal  his- 
torians who  have  wished  to  describe  the  growth  of  the  Romish 

tern.  "  Men,"  they  have  said,  "  who  were  stung  with  the 
recollection  of  evil  acts,  thought  they  might  do  something  to 
win  the  favor  or  avert  the  wrath  of  the  Divine  Being.  They 
must  make  sacrifices,  the  greatest  they  could  think  of,  or  which 
any  could  suggest  to  them,  that  their  sins  might  be  forgiven. 


NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS  OF  IT.  103 

What  sacrifices  these  should  be,  they  could  very  imperfectly 
guess ;  they  must  ask  wiser  people  to  tell  them.  They  found 
an  organized  hierarchy  established  for  the  very  purpose  of  ex- 
plaining the  relations  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible 
world,  and  of  maintaining  the  intercourse  between  them. 
Those  who  composed  it  ought  to  know  what  they  should  do. 
And  these  devised  indulgences  to  soothe  the  pains  of  the  dis- 
eased patients,  penances  that  irritated  them.  At  first,  the 
suggestion  might  be  merely  benevolent;  even  suitable  to  the 
case,  grounded  on  a  knowledge  of  the  symptoms.  Then  came 
in  the  love  of  power,  with  the  discovery  how  much  of  that, 
(which  presented  itself  to  the  vulgar  priest  in  the  form  of  ma- 
terial riches,)  might  be  obtained  by  catering  to  the  cravings  of 
a  morbid  appetite.  If  the  regular  practitioner  did  not  meet 
them,  popular  confessors  appearing  in  new  orders  supplied  the 
defects  of  the  original  svstem.  But  neither  one  nor  the  other 
were  sufficient.  The  poor  offender  felt,  all  confused  as  he 
wTas,  that  his  sacrifices  could  never  of  themselves  move  the 
mind  of  God.  He  must  ask  the  aid  of  those  who  had  pre- 
vailed in  the  fight,  in  which  he  seemed  likely  to  be  worsted. 
Saints  must  be  invoked,  who  would  themselves  invoke  the 
Highest  of  all,  to  be  merciful.  A  number  of  accidents  of  time, 
place,  occupation,  education,  would  dictate  which  should  be 
besought  by  any  particular  person.  The  Virgin  Mother 
would  be  a  more  general  pleader,  especially  for  the  female 
suppliants.  Those  who  habitually  sought  her  intercession 
with  the  Divine  Son,  might  hope  that  His  infinite  sacrifice 
would  remove  the  sins  which  they  had  contracted,  after  the 
great  original  sin  had  been  purged  away  in  baptism." 

Something  like  this  is  the  natural  history  of  Romanism, 
past  and  present,  which  we  find  in  books  not  pretending  to  be 
specially  theological,  but  trying  to  look  at  the  subject  fairly, 
from  an  ordinary  human  point  of  view.  To  make  the  state- 
ment quite  fair,  I  suppose  most  persons  would  admit, — I,  at 


104  THE  EVIL    HOW  DETECTED. 

least,  as  a  very  vehement  Protestant,  should, — that  there  is  an 
immense  amount  of  moral  and  spiritual  influences  acting-  upon 
those  who  are  tied  and  bound  in  this  system,  which  does  not 
proceed  from  it,  and  is  not  expressed  by  it.  Romanists  will 
be  found  in  no  ambiguous  phrases  acknowledging  the  love  of 
God  and  His  free  grace  as  the  only  source  of  good  human 
acts,  submission  to  His  will  as  the  only  acceptable  sacrifice. 
They  will  make  these  confessions,  not  as  if  they  were  conced- 
ing something  to  us,  blit  as  the  proper  expression  of  their  own 
faith,  as  implied  in  the  very  nature  of  a  Catholic  church  ;  they 
will  prove  the  sincerity  of  them  by  their  lives.  All  such  facts 
are  to  be  admitted,  not  reluctantly,  not  as  if  it  was  a  shock  to 
our  belief  that  we  were  obliged  to  make  them,  but  with  the 
most  unspeakable  delight;  as  well  for  the  sake  of  those  to 
whom  they  apply,  as  because  they  prove  how  utterly  the  no- 
tions which  oppose  these  confessions  are  at  war  with  the  deep- 
est and  truest  convictions  of  men,  how  unnatural  it  is  to  asso- 
ciate them  with  any  faith.  Multiply  proofs  of  this  kind  a 
thousandfold,  you  increase  the  evidence  that  it  is  a  duty  to 
labor  continually  that  a  cancer  may  be  extirpated,  which  is 
eating  out  the  heart  of  Christendom,  the  poisonous  quality 
and  deadly  effects  of  which  our  most  vehement  Protestant  de- 
claimers  do  not  exaggerate,  but  underrate. 

2.  Nor  can  I  discover  that  those  declaimers  are  the  least 
mistaken  in  the  explanation  which  they  commonly  give  of  the 
means  whereby  this  mischief  was  detected,  and  by  which 
some  were  enabled  to  escape  it.  They  6ay  that  when  Luther 
found  out  that  he  was  a  sinner,  when  he  knew  that  fact  in  the 
length  and  breadth  of  it, — not  by  the  hearing  of  the  car,  but 
by  his  own  tremendous  experience, — he  could  no  longer  be 
content  with  any  of  the  priestly  inventions  for  putting  away 
sin ;  that  he  then  knew  that  he  could  only  be  delivered  from 
it  if  God  delivered  him;  that  he  demanded  to  know  whether 
He  had  proclaimed  forgiveness  of  sin ;  whether  there  wras  any 


STORY  OF    LUTHER.  105 

sacrifice  which  He  had  appointed  and  accepted  ?  They  say 
that  Luther  found  the  answers  to  these  questions  in  the  Bible 
— that  he  was  content  when  he  was  told,  on  its  authority,  that 
the  Son  of  G-od  had  taken  away  sin ;  that  this  might  be  re- 
ceived and  preached  to  ail  men  as  His  Gospel.  The  person 
who  differs  most  with  Luther,  must  accept  this  as  a  statement 
of  notorious  facts;  it  is  as  much  acknowledged  by  Michelet 
as  by  Marheineke,  or  Merle  d'Aubigne.  I  accept  it  also  as 
being  entirely  in  accordance  with  internal  evidence — with  the 
law  which  I  am  endeavoring  to  establish.  Luther's  conscience 
did  not  make  a  system.  It  protested  against  one  which  had 
been  made  in  compliance  with  apparent  necessities  of  the  con- 
science. It  said  that  the  real  necessity  of  the  conscience  was, 
that  God  should  speak  to  it,  declare  Himself  to  it, — should 
proclaim  Himself  as  its  reconciler,  should  show  how  and  in 
whom  He  had  accomplished  that  work  on  its  behalf. 

3.  But  I  admitted  that  there  were  grave  and  earnest  pro- 
tests against  much  of  what  is  called  oar  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment. u  You  hold,"  it  is  said,  a  that  God  had  condemned  all 
His  creatures  to  perish,  because  they  had  broken  His  law ; 
that  His  justice  could  not  be  satisfied  without  an  infinite  pun- 
ishment; that  that  infinite  punishment  would  have  visited  all 
men,  if  Christ  in  His  mercy  to  men  had  not  interposed  and 
offered  Himself  as  the  substitute  for  them;  that  by  enduring 
an  inconceivable  amount  of  anguish  He  reconciled  the  Father, 
and  made  it  possible  for  Him  to  forgive  those  who  would  be- 
lieve. This  whole  statement,"  the  objector  continues,  "  is  based 
on  a  certain  notion  of  justice.  It  professes  to  explain,  on  cer- 
tain principles  of  justice,  what  God  ought  to  have  done,  and 
what  He  actually  has  done.  And  this  notion  of  justice  out- 
rages the  conscience  to  which  you  seem  to  offer  your  explana- 
tion. You  often  feel  that  it  does.  You  admit  that  it  is  not 
the  kind  of  justice  which  would  be  expected  of  men.  And 
then  you  turn  round  and  ask  us  what  we  can  know  of  God's 
justice  ;  how  we  can  tell  that  it  is  of  the  same  kind  with  ours. 
5* 


106         COMPLAINTS  OF   THE  PROTESTANT  DOCTRINE. 

After  arguing  with  us,  to  show  the  necessity  of  a  certain 
course,  you  say  that  the  argument  is  good  for  nothing ;  we 
are  not  capable  of  taking  it  in  !  Or  else  you  say  that  the  car- 
nal mind  cannot  understand  spiritual  ideas.  We  can  only 
answer,  We  prefer  our  carnal  notion  of  justice  to  your  spirit- 
ual one.  We  cau  forgive  a  fellow-creature  a  wrong  done  to 
us,  without  exacting  an  equivalent  for  it ;  we  blame  ourselves 
if  we  do  not ;  we  think  we  are  offending  against  Christ's  com- 
mand, who  said,  '  Be  ye  merciful  as  your  Father  in  J  leaven 
is  merciful,'  if  we  do  not.  We  do  not  feel  that  punishment  is 
a  r-atisfaction  to  our  minds  :  we  are  ashamed  of  ourselves  when 
we  consider  it  is.  We  may  suffer  a  criminal  to  be  punished, 
but  it  is  that  we  may  do  him  good,  or  assert  a  principle.  And 
if  that  is  our  object,  we  do  not  suffer  an  innocent  person  to 
prevent  the  guilty  from  enduring  the  consequences  of  his  guilt 
by  taking  them  upon  himself.  Are  these  maxims  moral,  or 
are  the  opposing  maxims  moral  ?  If  they  are  moral,  should 
we,  because  God  is  much  more  righteous  than  we  can  imagine 
<>r  understand,  suppose  that  His  acts  are  at  variance  with 
them  ?  Should  we  attribute  to  Him  what  would  be  unright- 
eousness in  us  V1 

These  questions  I  ked  on  all  sides  of  us.  Clergymen  are 

exceedingly  anxious  to  stifle  them.  "  We  know,"  they  say, 
11  by  experience  whither  such  doubts  are  leading.  The  objec- 
tor begins  with  disputing  some  views  of  the  Atonement,  which 
may  perhaps  be  extreme.      11<  <  on  to   deny  the  doctrine 

itself — to  say  that  it  has  no  place  in  the  scheme  of  Christian- 
ity. He  knows,  however,  that  his  fathers  held  it  to  be  a  vital 
doctrine.  He  suspects  that  it  is  in  the  Bible.  The  end  is — 
that  he  denies  the  Bible  itself."  Such  a  conclusion  may  well 
startle  a  good  man.  He  feels  that  principles  wThich  his  expe- 
rience has  proved  to  be  infinitely  precious  are  in  hazard.  He 
has  never  visited  the  dying  bed  of  a  humble  penitent  who  did 
not  cling  to  the  cross  of  Christ  as  her  dearest  hope,  who  did 


THE  PENITENT.  107 

not  feel  that  without  His  sacrifice  and  death  she  could  have  no 
peace.  He  asks  whether  he  is  to  rob  the  poor  and  meek  of 
these  jewels  because  certain  proud  men  do  not  like  the  casket 
which  contains  them,  because  they  cannot  bring  the  teachings 
of  the  Bible  to  the  level  of  their  understandings  1 

Debates  are  going  on  in  every  corner  of  our  land  suggested 
by  these  difficulties.  What  misery,  what  alienation  of  heart 
arises  from  them  no  one  can  tell !  On  the  one  side,  the  conse- 
quence of  the  strife  is  an  ever  increasing  hardness  and  dogma- 
tism blighting  all  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit;  on  the  other,  a  bar- 
ren hopeless  infidelity.  It  must  then  be  the  most  serious  of  all 
duties  to  labor  so  far  as  in  us  lies  that  the  sound  and  deep 
convictions  which  evidently  are  in  the  heart  of  the  divine  and 
the  moralist  may  not  become  utterly  destroyed  through  their 
separation,  that  each  should  confess  the  error  which  was  min- 
gled with  that  truth  in  his  mind,  and  is  threatening  to  make 
it  inoperative. 

The  statement  of  the  clergyman  is  certainly  not  exaggerated 
— that  the  best,  the  humblest,  truest  hearts  are  those  which 
rest  with  most  childlike  faith  upon  the  belief  that  "  God  has 
reconciled  the  world  unto  Himself,  not  imputing  their  tres- 
passes unto  them ;"  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  the  death  of 
that  "  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 
To  tell  such  persons  that  no  atonement  has  been  made  between 
man  and  God,  would  be  to  tell  them  that  the  future  is  onlv  a 
perpetual  lengthening  out  of  the  anguish  of  conscience  which 
is  and  must  be  bitterer  to  them  than  all  other  anguish ;  that 
there  is  an  impassable  gulf  between  them  and  all  truth  and 
righteousness.  What  is  it  to  assure  them  that  transgressions 
are  forgiven  by  a  bare  act  of  amnesty,  unless  the  sin  of  the 
heart  and  will,  the  separation  from  God,  which  is  the  root 
of  these  transgressions,  is  at  an  end  ?  How  can  you  ever 
persuade  them  that  it  is  at  an  end  unless  God  Himself  has  re- 
moved it  ?    How  can  God  have  removed  a  separation  unless 


108  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL. 

there  is  some  One  in  whom  we  are  bound  more  closely  to  Him 
than  our  evils  have  put  us  asunder? 

The  broad  simple  Gospel,  that  God  has  set  forth  His  Son  as 
the  propitiation  lor  sin,  that  He  has  offered  Himself  for  the 
sins  of  the  world,  meets  all  the  desires  of  these  heart-stricken 
sinners.  It  declares  to  them  the  fulness  of  God's  love,  & 
forth  the  Mediator  in  whom  they  are  at  one  with  the  Father. 
It  brings  divine  Love  and  human  Buffering  into  direct  and  ac- 
tual union.  It  shows  Him  who  is  one  with  God  and  one  with 
man,  perfectly  giving  up  that  self-will  which  had  been  the 
cause  of  all  men's  crimes  and  all  their  misery.  Here  is  indeed 
a  brazen  serpent  to  which  one  dying  from  the  bite  of  the  old 
serpent  can  look  and  be  healed.  The  more  that  brazen  ser- 
pent is  lifted  up,  the  more  may  we  look  for  health  and  renova- 
tion to  the  whole  of  humanity,  and  to  every  one  of  its  palsied 
and  withered  limbs. 

I  do  not  deny,  that  besides  these  leading  convictions  which 
take  possession  of  the  heart  as  it  contemplates  the  Cross  of 
Christ,  there  are  others  apparently  of  a  different  kind.  Since 
nowdiere  is  the  contrast  between  infinite  Love  and  infinite  Evil 
brought  before  us  as  it  is  there,  we  have  the  fullest  right  to 
affirm  that  the  Cross  exhibits  the  wrath  of  God  against  sin, 
and  the  endurance  of  that  wrath  by  the  \vell-belo\ed  Son.  For 
wrath  against  that  which  is  unlovely,  is  not  the  counteracting 
force  to  love,  but  the  attribute  of  it.  Without  it,  love  would 
be  a  name,  and  not  a  reality.  And  the  endurance  of  that 
wrath  or  punishment  by  Christ  came  from  His  acknowledging 
that  it  proceeded  from  love,  and  His  willingness  that  it  should 
not  be  quenched  till  it  had  effected  its  full  loving  purpose. 
The  endurance  of  that  wrath  was  the  proof  that  he  bore  in  the 
truest  and  strictest  sense  the  sins  of  the  world,  feeling  them 
with  that  anguish  with  which  only  a  perfectly  pure  and  holy 
Being,  who  is  also  a  perfectly  sympathising  and  gracious  Be- 
ing, can  feel  the  sin  of  others.     Whatever  diminished  his  pari- 


WRATH  AGAINST  SIN.  109 

ty,  must  have  diminished  his  .sympathy.  Complete  suffering 
with  sin  and  for  sin  is  only  possible  in  one  who  is  completely 
free  from  it. 

But  is  the  clergyman  who  preaches  this  gospel,  and  sees  the 
effect  of  it  upon  some  of  his  flock,  therefore  bound  to  adopt 
those  conclusions  respecting  the  reasons  of  Christ's  death, 
which  have  so  shocked  the  conscience  of  the  sceptic  whom  he 
is  condemning  ?  Properly  speaking,  his  business  is  simply  to 
proclaim  the  good  news  of  reconciliation.  Reasons  may  occur 
to  him  besides  those  which  the  Bible  gives  us.  Some  may  be 
plausible,  some  may  be  tolerable.  But  they  do  not  belong  to 
the  essence  of  his  commission.  Woe  be  to  him,  if  he  mistakes 
the  best  of  them  for  that  which  it  tries  to  account  for.  Since, 
however,  it  is  inevitable  that  his  understanding  and  imagina- 
tion will  be  busy  with  this  and  every  other  subject  divine  or 
human  that  he  handles,  it  is  very  necessary  that  he  should  per- 
ceive what  conclusions  of  theirs  may  contradict  the  truth 
which  God  has  committed  to  him.  For  "this  purpose,  I  would 
beseech  him  to  observe  carefully  which  portions  of  his  state- 
ments come  home  to  the  hearts  of  the  really  humble  and  con- 
trite— which  afford  delight  and  satisfaction  to  the  conceited, 
self-righteous,  self-exalting  men  and  women  of  his  flock,  who 
in  ease  and  health  think  that  they  are  safe,  because  they  are 
condemning  others,  who  in  sickness  and  on  a  death-bed  dis- 
cover that  in  seeming  to  believe  everything,  they  have  actually 
believed  nothing.  This  comparison,  if  it  is  faithfully  pursued, 
and  never  separated  from  self-examination,  will  lead  him,  I  be- 
lieve, to  precisely  the  same  result  at  which  he  would  arrive  by 
the  other  method  of  considering  what  is  demanded  by  the 
principles  which  Protestants  and  Pomanists  recognise  in  com- 
mon. On  this  last  subject,  I  wish  to  speak  a  little  more  at 
large.  I  wish  to  show  that  the  orthodox  faith  as  it  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  Bible  and  the  Creeds,  absolutely  prevents  us 
from  acquiescing  in  some  of  those  explanations  of  the  Atone 


110  THE  WILL    OF    GOD. 

ment,  which  both   in  popular  and  scholastic  teachings  have 
been  identified  with  it. 

1.  It  is  involved  in  the  very  method  of  theology,  as  the 
Bible  and  the  creeds  set  it  forth  to  us,  that  the  A V i  1 1  of  God 
should  be  asserted  as  the  ground  of  all  that  is  right,  true,  just, 
gracious.  There  is  no  acknowledged  difference  of  opinion  on 
this  point.  It  would  be  accounted  heresy  in  all  orthodox 
schools  to  deny  that  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour 
of  men  ;  that  the  Father  set  forth  the  Son  to  be  the  propitia- 
tion for  our  6ins ;  that  Christ,  by  his  life,  proved  that  God  is 
light,  and  that  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all.  These  declara- 
tions of  St.  John  are  admitted  as  fundamental  truths,  to  which 
all  others  must  do  homage,  which  no  other  passages  can  con- 
tradict. All  I  ask  is,  that  we  may  hold  fast  this  profession 
without  wavering ;  that  no  feeble  compromiser  may  be  suf- 
fered to  come  in  and  say,  "  All  this  is  true  in  a  sense,"  with- 
out telling  us  in  what  sense ;  and  if  it  is  such  a  sense  as  clear- 
ly is  not  meant  to  govern  all  our  thoughts,  determinations, 
conclusions,  he  may  be  dismissed  as  one  who  has  no  business 
to  call  himself  an  orthodox  man. 

2.  It  is  admitted  in  all  schools,  Romanist  and  Protestant, 
which  do  not  dissent  from  the  Creed,  that  Christ  the  Son  of 
God  was  in  heaven  and  earth,  one  with  the  Father,  one  in 
will,  purpose,  substance;  and  that  on  earth  His  whole  life  was 
nothing  else  than  an  exhibition  of  this  Will,  an  entire  submis- 
sion to  it.  There  is  no  dispute  among  orthodox  people  about 
this    point,  more   than   about    the  othi  And    there  is  no 

dispute  as  to  the  principle  being  a  fundamental  one,  that 
on  which  the  very  nature  of  Christ's  sacrifice  must  depend,  as 
the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  declares  that  it  does. 
What  we  have  a  right  to  insist  on  is,  that  no  notion  or  theory 
shall  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  this  fundamental  maxim.  If 
we  wTould  adhere  to  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  Saints,  we 


reasons  of  Christ's  deA-tit.  Ill 

must  not  dare  to  speak  of  Christ  as  changing  that  Will  which 
He  took  flesh  and  died  to  fulfil. 

3.  It  is  confessed  by  all  orthodox  schools,  that  Christ  was 
actually  the  Lord  of  men,"  the  King  of  their  spirits,  the  Source 
of  all  the  light  which  ever  visited  them,  the  Person  for  whom 
all  nations  longed  as  their  Head  and  Deliverer,  the  root  of 
righteousness  in  each  man.  The  Bible  speaks  of  His  being 
revealed  in  this  character ;  of  the  mystery  which  had  been 
hid  from  ages  and  generations  being  made  known  by  His  In- 
carnation. If  we  speak  of  Christ  as  taking  upon  Himself  the 
sins  of  men  by  some  artificial  substitution,  we  deny  that  He  i3 
their  actual  Eepresentative. 

4.  The  Scripture  says,  Because  the  children  were  "  partak- 
ers of  flesh  and  blood  He  also  Himself  took  part  of  the  same.'' 
He  became  subject  to  death,  "  that  He  might  destroy  Him 
who  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  Devil."  Here  are 
reasons  assigned  for  the  Incarnation  and  the  death  of  Christ. 
He  shared  the  sufferings  of  those  whose  head  He  is.  He  over- 
came death,  their  common  enemy,  by  submitting  to  it.  He 
delivered  them  from  the  power  of  the  Devil.  All  orthodox 
schools,  in  formal  language, — tens  of  thousands  of  suffering 
people,  in  ordinary  human  language, — have  confessed  the 
force  of  the  words.  Instead  of  seeking  to  put  Christ  at  a  dis- 
tance from  themselves,  by  tasking  their  fancy  to  conceive  of 
sufferings  wrhich,  at  the  same  moment  are  pronounced  incon- 
ceivable, they  have  claimed  Him  as  entering  into  their  actual 
miseries,  as  bearing  their  griefs.  They  have  believed  that  He 
endured  death,  because  it  was  theirs,  and  rose  to  set  them 
free  from  it,  because  it  was  an  evil  accident  of  their  condition 
— an  effect  of  disorder,  not  of  God's  original  order.  They 
have  believed  that  He  rescued  them  out  of  the  power  of  an 
enemy,  by  yielding  to  his  power,  not  that  He  rescued  them  | 
out  of  the  hand  of  God  by  paying  a  penalty  to  Him.  Any 
notion    whatever    which    interferes    with  this  faith  ;  any  ex- 


112  REMOVAL  OF    SIX,  SATISFACTION. 

planation  of  Christ's  sufferings  which  is  put  in  the  place  of 
the  Apostle's  explanation,  or  does  not  strictly  harmonize 
with  it ;  far  more  any  that  contradicts  it,  and  leaves  us  open 
to  the  awful  danger  of  confounding  the  Evil  Spirit  with  God, 
— we  have  a  right  to  repudiate  as  unorthodox,  unscriptural, 
and  audacious. 

5.  The  Scripture  says,  "  The  Lamb  of  God  taketh  aivay  the 
>S/'/i  of  the  icorld."  All  orthodox  teachers  repeat  the  lesson. 
They  say  Christ  came  to  deliver  sinners  from  sin.  This  is 
what  the  sinner  asks  for.  Have  we  a  right  to  call  ourselves 
spiritual  or  orthodox,  if  we  change  the  words,  and  put  "  penalty 
of  sin"  for  "  sin  ;"  if  we  suppose  that  Christ  destroyed  the  con- 
nexion between  sin  and  death, — the  one  being  the  necessary 
wages  of  the  other, — for  the  sake  of  benefiting  any  individual 
man  whatever?  If  He  had,  would  He  have  magnified  the 
Law  and  made  it  honorable?  Would  He  not  have  destroyed 
that  which  I  If  came  to  fulfil?     Those  who  say  the  law   must 

•cute  itself,  must  have  its  penalty,  should  remember  their 
own  words.     How  does  it  execui  If  if  a  person,  against 

whom  it  is  not  directed,  interposes  to  bear  its  punishment? 

G.  The  voice  at  Christ's  baptism  said,  "  This  is  my  beloved 
Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  Christ  said,  "  Therefore  doth 
my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep." 
Ail  orthodox  schools  have  said,  that  a  perfectly  holy  and  loving 
Being  can  be  satisfied  only  with  a  holiness  and  love  correspond- 
ing to  his  own  ;  that  Christ  satisfied  the  Father  by  presenting 
the  image  of  His  own  holiness  and  love,  that  in  his  sacrifice 
and  death,  all  that  holiness  and  love  came  forth  completely. 
There  is  no  dissent  upon  this  point,  among  those  who  adhere 
to  the  Creed.  But  it  cannot  be  an  accidental  point;  it  must 
belong  to  the  root  and  essence  of  divinity.  How,  then,  can 
we  tolerate  for  an  instant  that  notion  of  God  which  would  re- 
present Him  as  satisfied  by  the  punishment  of  sin,  not  by  the 
purity  and  graciousness  of  the  Son  1 


>  SUMMARY.  113 

\  7.  Supposing  all  these  principles  gathered  together;  sup- 
posing the  Father's  will  to  be  a  will  to  all  good; — supposing 
the  Son  of  God,  being  one  with  Him,  and  Lord  of  man,  to 
obey  and  fulfil  in  our  flesh  that  will  by  entering  into  the  lowest 
condition  into  which  men  had  fallen  through  their  sin  ; — sup- 
posing this  Man  to  be,  for  this  reason,  an  object  of  continual 
complacency  to  His  Father,  and  that  complacency  to  be  fully 
drawn  out  by  the  Death  of  the  Cross ;  supposing  His  Death 
to  be  a  Sacrifice,  the  only  complete  sacrifice  ever  offered,  the 
entire  surrender  of  the  whole  spirit  and  body  to  God ;  is 
not  this,  in  the  highest  sense,  Atonement  ?  Is  not  the  true, 
sinless  root  of  Humanity  revealed ;  is  not  God  in  Him  recon- 
ciled to  man  ?  Is  not  the  Cross  the  meeting  point  between 
man  and  man,  between  man  and  God  ?  Is  not  this  meeting 
point  what  men,  in  all  times  and  places,  have  been  seeking  for  ? 
Did  any  find  it  till  God  declared  it  ?  And  are  not  we  bring- 
ing our  understandings  to  the  foot  of  this  Cross,  when  we 
solemnly  abjure  all  schemes  and  statements,  however  sanction- 
ed by  the  arguments  of  divines,  however  plausible  as  imple- 
ments of  declamation,  which  prevent  us  from  believing  and 
proclaiming  that  in  it  all  the  wisdom  and  truth  and  glory  of 
God  were  manifested  to  the  creature ;  that  in  it  man  is  pre- 
sented as  a  holy  and  acceptable  sacrifice  to  the  Creator  ? 

"  I  am  not  nearer,  then,  to  Unitarianism,  because  I  have 
joined  them  in  repudiating  certain  opinions  which  they,  and 
many  of  us,  have  supposed  inseparable  from  the  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  ?"  Not  nearer  to  them,  certainly  in  any  one 
of  their  negative  conclusions.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  used 
the  articles  in  the  Creed  which  they  most  dissent  from,  as  my 
weapons  against  the  representations  of  God,  which  we  agree 
in  thinking  horrible.  I  have  appealed  to  the  Creed,  as  my  protec- 
tion from  dogmas  which  I  have  attributed  to  the  active  work- 
ings of  the  consciousness  and  the  intellect ;  one  or  other  of 


114  NO  APPROACH  TO  UNITAPJANISM. 

which  they  are  generally  inclined  to  deify.  Nor  can  I  help  fur- 
ther offending  them  by  saying,  that  the  tenacity  with  which  my 
orthodox  brethrenhave  maintained  notions  at  variance,  as  I  think, 
with  their  inmost  faith,  has  been  owing  in  great  measure  to 
their  Unitarian  opponents.  They  have  heard  the  faith  and  the 
opinions  assailed  together;  they  have  supposed  that  there 
must  be  an  intimate  connexion  between  them ;  they  have 
feared  to  ask  whether  there  is  or  not.    Men  of  the  Evangelical 

uol,  who  did  not  like  Archbishop  Magee's  book,  because 
they  found  nothing  in  it  which  responded  to  the  witness  of 
their  hearts,  yet  accepted  it  on  the  poor  calculation  that  it 
was  a  learned  book,  and  might  defend  what  they  were  pleased 
to  call  the  outworks  of  the  faith.  Men  of  the  Patristic  school, 
who  knew  how  little  it  accorded  with  the  divinity  they  most 
admired,  yet  argued,  economically,  that  it  might  serve  the 
purposes  of  such  an  age  as  ours  is,  and  might  confute  ob- 
jectors who  did  not  deserve  to  be  acquainted  with  any  higher 
truth.     I  acknowledge  the  dishonesty  and  faithU  s  of  both 

decisions;  I  feel  most  deeply  the  mischiefs  which  have  followed 
from  both ;  but  I  see  how  much  there  was  to  make  them 
plausible.  I  believe  it  is  only  a  peculiar  discipline  and  some 
very  painful  experience,  which  has  led  me  to  abandon  them, 
and  to  say  boldly,  "  I  must  give  up  Archbishop  Magee,  for  I 
am  determined  to  keep  that  which  makes  the  Atonement  pre- 
cious to  my  heart  and  conscience;  to  keep  the  theology  of  the 
Creeds  and  of  the  Bible. 

But  though  I  should  be  dishonest  if  I  pretended  that  I  was 
approximating  a  step  nearer  to  TJnitarianism,  because  these 
seemingly  impassable  barriers  are  removed,  I  do  think  that  they 
have  separated  us  from  the  hearts  and  reasons  of  Unitarians 
most  unnecessarily  and  mischievously.  When  the  Atonement  is 
defended  as  an  opinion  of  ours  which  they  are  setting  at  nought, 
as  a  conception  respecting  the  method  of  God's  government,  and 
the  reasons  of  His  conduct,  which  they  are  disputing,  the  in- 


EFFECT  OF  BELIEVING  THE  ATONEMENT.  115 

dignation  against  them  becomes  greater,  because  the  question 
at  issue  becomes  more  involved  with  our  personal  credit,  inge- 
nuity, security.  We  are  on  one  side,  they  are  on  the  other  ; 
the  assurance  that  the  divine  Atonement  is  infinitely  wonder- 
ful, mixes  with  a  consciousness  that  we  are  making  it  petty  by 
our  mode  of  fighting  for  it.  We  revenge  ourselves  for  the 
painful  contradiction  by  increased  violence,  hoping  so  to  con- 
vince  ourselves  that  we  are  in  earnest.  When  the  Atonement 
is  contemplated  as  the  ground  of  a  Gospel  to  men, — when  I 
dare  to  say,  God  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  His  only-begot- 
ten Son  for  it, — how  closely  does  that  belief  bind  me  to  Unita- 
rians, of  every  class  and  hue  !  They  may  build  their  theology 
upon  certain  deductions  of  the  intellect,  or  upon  certain  indi- 
vidual consciousnesses ;  mine  rests  on  the  Eternal  Love,  which 
overlooks  all  distinctions,  which  embraces  the  universe.  They 
may  glorify  this  or  that  material — this  or  that  spiritual — • 
notion  and  conception.  I  am  bound  to  acknowledge  a  Son 
of  God,  who  is  the  Lord  of  their  spirits  and  souls  and  bodies 
as  He  is  of  mine,  who  took  their  nature  as  He  did  mine,  who 
died  upon  the  cross  for  them  as  He  did  for  me.  They  may 
argue  about  the  degree  of  sin  in  one  or  in  other  of  us  ;  lam 
bound  to  think  that  I  am  as  much  a  sinner  as  any  of  them  can 
be,  and  that  Christ  is  the  Lamb  of  God  who  took  away  the 
sin  of  the  world.  They  may  think  there  is  some  other  way 
to  the  Father  than  through  the  cross  of  the  Son;  I  must  con- 
fess that  there,  He  is  as  willing  to  meet  and  bless  every  one  of 
them,  as  He  can  be  to  meet  and  bless  me.  I  can  only  hope 
to  know  Him  while  I  seek  Him  in  One  who  perfectly  humbled 
himself;  what  a  lie  and  a  blasphemy  to  exalt  myself  on  the 
plea  of  possessing  that  knowledge  ! 


ESSAY   VIII. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  THE  SON  OF  GOD  FROM  DEATH, 

THE  GRAVE,  AND  HELL. 


In  the  last  Essay  I  spoke  of  the  Death  of  Christ  as  it  is 
connected  with  the  Christian  idea  of  Sacrifice  and  Atonement. 
But  all  people  who  know  the  tendencies  of  this  age,  and  who 
know  themselves,  are  aware  how  much  more  easy  it  is  to  con- 
template this  or  any  event  recorded  in  the  Scripture,  as  an 
idea,  than  as  a  fact.  There  are  many  who  acknowledge  the 
Death  and  Resurrection  of  Christ,  in  what  they  call  a  spiritual 
sense,  to  whom  the  plain  words  of  the  Creed,  u  He  was  dead 
and  buried,  He  descended  into  Hell,  the  third  day  He  n 
again  from  the  dead,"  are  merely  words  which  they  repeat  be- 
cause they  have  repeated  them  from  childhood.  Numbers 
more  hold  those  words  to  be  the  relics  of  an  effete  supersti- 
tion, out  of  which  the  world  has  extracted  whatever  good 
there  was  in  it,  and  which  may  now  be  left  to  crumble.  I 
wish  to  inquire  whether  the  spiritual  men,  or  these  words  of 
the  Creed,  meet  the  demands  of  the  human  heart  best :  whe- 
ther these  words,  or  those  who  cast  them  aside,  are  most 
favorers  of  superstition. 

(116) 


THE  LAST  ENEMY.  117 

1 .  St.  Paul  says  :  "  The  last  enemy  which  shall  be  destroyed 
is  Death."  Strauss.,  being  at  issue  with  him  on  most  other 
points,  appears  to  have  reached  the  climax  of  opposition  upon 
this.  He  says  :  "The  last  enemy  which  shall  be  destroyed  is 
the  belief  of  man  in  his  own  immortality."  Some  may  sup- 
pose that  he  has  merely  uttered  an  audacious  paradox,  for  the 
sake  of  startling  us,  and  showing  us  how  far  his  vehemence 
against  our  ordinary  faith  will  go.  I  do  not  think  so.  If  we 
question  our  own  minds  honestly,  we  may  find  that  there  have 
been  many  hours,  days,  weeks,  perhaps  years,  in  which  we  have 
practically  yielded  assent  to  his  proposition.  "  If  I  could  get  rid 
of  this  sense  of  immortality,  if  I  could  convince  myself  that 
my  years  would  be  rounded  with  a  sleep,  if  I  could  be  sure 
that  there  would  be  no  dreams  in  that  sleep — what  freedom 
I  should  possess  !  how  I  should  be  able  to  enjoy  the  threescore 
years,  or  the  thirty  or  twenty  years,  which  are  allotted  me 
here!"  Surely  the  modern  teacher  has  a  large  body  of  un- 
confessing,  unconscious  disciples ;  he  must  have  'known  that 
he  was  the  spokesman  for  thousands,  whom  some  fear  with- 
held from  expressing  their  own  feelings.  And  have  I  not  been 
obliged  to  confess  in  former  Essays,  that  there  is  a  justification 
for  these  feelings  ?  Cannot  numbers  tell  of  sad  effects  which 
the  dread  of  the  wrorld  to  come  has  produced  upon  their  con- 
duct to  other  men,  upon  their  judgment  of  the  beautiful  wrorld 
in  which  God  has  placed  them,  upon  their  thoughts  of  God 
Himself?  Have  they  not  been  cold,  hard,  selfish,  whenever 
their  minds  have  been  occupied  with  the  one  problem,  how 
they  may  avert  the  doom  which  they  fear  is  awaiting  them 
hereafter  1  Have  they  not  almost  cursed  the  trees  and  flowers, 
the  new  birth  of  spring,  the  songs  of  birds,  the  faces  of  chil- 
dren, as  if  they  wrere  mockeries — witnesses  of  some  present 
life  with  which  they  cannot  safely  sympathise  ?  Has  not  the 
vision  of  God  been  one  of  darkness  and  horror  ?  When  they 
have  said,  "  Our  Father,"  have  they  not  intended  one  who 


118  DREAD  OF    IMMORTALITY. 

might  destroy  them,  and  from  whom  they  have  wished  to  be 
delivered  ?  Such  experiences  in  themselves,  interpret  what 
they  read  in  history.  They  see  what  frightful  crimes  have 
been  committed  by  men  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  or  appeasing 
those  who  may  dispose  of  their  future  destiny ;  how  these 
crimes  have  become  a  part  of  their  moral  system,  sanctioned 
and  promoted  by  those  who  had  apparently  more  insight  into 
the  mind  of  their  God  or  gods  than  they  have ;  what  poverty 
and  filth,  what  neglect  of  relations,  what  slavery  and  cowardice 
have  been  engendered  by  the  notion  that  the  business  of  exist- 
ence here,  is  to  provide  for  the  possibilities  of  another  existence 
elsewhere. 

Tantum  Religio  potuit  suadere  malorum 

has  been  no  unreasonable  summary  of  this  evidence.  Is  not 
this  summary  expressed  in  another  form  by  the  words  :  "  The 
enemy  to  be  got  rid  of,  is  the  sense  of  immortality  ?" 

But  practical  men  are  driven  to  ask  themselves  another 
question.  How  is  this  sense  to  be  got  rid  of?  How  is  this 
enemy  to  be  destroyed?  No  experiments  for  the  purpose 
have  succeeded  yet;  no  theories  of  the  universe,  no  new- 
arrangements  of  it.  When  you  have  seemingly  extinguished 
this  consciousness,  it  starts  up  again ;  the  arguments  and 
schemes  which  were  to  exclude  it,  themselves  suggest  it  and 
awaken  it.  And  yet  there  have  been  such  approximations  to 
the  extinction  of  this  feeling,  as  show  clearly  the  only  way  in 
which  it  ever  can  be  reached.  Each  one  may  understand  for 
himself  that  the  more  he  cultivates  a  merely  animal  existence, 
the  more  he  forgets  that  he  was  created  for  anything  but  to  eat 
and  drink  and  sleep,  the  less  clear  and  strong  is  this  sense  of 
immortality.  And  if  he  could  stifle  all  thoughts  that  carry 
him  back  into  past  generations,  and  onward  into  those  which 
will  be  when  he  has  left  the  earth  ;  if  he  could  disconnect  him- 
self altogether  with  family,  race,  country,  social  sympathies ; 
•  if  he  could  cease  to  think  of  himself  as  a  person,  and  become 


CAN  WE    ESCAPE  FKOM  IT  ?  119 

merely  a  thing,  he  might  quit  himself  of  this  coil  ;  not,  I  sus- 
pect, till  then.  As  long  as  everything  about  him  preaches  of 
permanence  and  restoration,  as  well  as  of  fragility  and  decay ; 
as  long  as  he  is  obliged  to  speak  of  succession  and  continuance 
and  order  in  the  universe,  and  in  the  societies  of  men ;  as  long 
as  he  feels  that  he  can  investigate  the  one,  and  that  he  is  a 
living  portion  of  the  other :  so  long  the  sense  of  immortality 
will  be  with  him  ;  he  cannot  cast  it  off.  The  philosopher  to 
whom  I  have  alluded,  probably  supposes  that  he  can  substi- 
tute a  political  immortality  for  a  personal  one :  that  he  can 
teach  men  to  be  indifferent  about  their  own  continuance  after 
death,  by  making  them  think  of  the  life  and  endurance  of  their 
race.  He  will  find  that  the  more  strongly  one  sentiment  is  de- 
veloped, the  more  certain  the  other  is  to  come  forth ;  that  if 
one  perishes,  the  other  must  perish.  For  he  who  heartily  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  the  member  of  a  family  or  society,  for 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  fight,  and  to  perish,  has  the  strongest 
conviction  of  his  own  personality ;  he  cannot  separate  his  life 
from  its  life  ;  if  it  has  any  being  he  must  have  a  being. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  most  true  that  a  man  may  be- 
come awfully  conscious  of  his  own  personality,  while  he  is 
standing  apart  from  all  human  beings.  This  is  what  I  spoke 
of,  in  a  former  Essay,  as  emphatically  the  sense  of  Sin,  the 
experience  of  a  dark,  hopeless  isolation,  caused  by  one's  own 
self,  certain  to  continue  while  that  continues.  And  this 
it  is  which  unites  Sin  to  Death,  which  makes  it  so  hard  for  us 
to  divorce  them  in  our  thoughts.  Death,  in  the  obvious  aspect 
of  it,  is  isolation ;  the  separation  of  each  creature  from  its  fel- 
low. The  internal  dread  of  it,  strictly  corresponds  to  this  its 
outward  manifestation.  "  I  said  in  the  cutting  off  of  my  days, 
I  shall  go  to  the  gates  of  the  grave;  I  am  deprived  of  the  re- 
sidue of  my  days.  I  shall  not  see  the  Lord,  even  the  Lord,  in 
the  land  of  the  living.  I  shall  behold  man  no  more  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world."      This  was  Hezekiah's  language ; 


120  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  DEATH. 

the  most  natural  language  that  a  man  could  utter ;  the  revela- 
tion of  the  thoughts  of  innumerable  hearts.  He  has  in  him- 
self the  sense  of  immortality.  It  has  been  nourished  by  all  his 
faithful  acts  as  a  King,  by  all  his  sympathies  with  his  nation, 
by  all  his  efforts  to  preserve  it  alive,  by  all  his  confidence  that 
God  would  uphold  it  from  generation  to  generation.  Now  he 
is  losing  sight  of  all  those  with  whom  he  has  shared  his  hopes, 
his  fears,  his  sorrows.  He  is  losing  sight  of  the  temple  of  God, 
of  all  that  has  reminded  him  of  His  presence.  Where  shall  he 
be  ?  shall  he  not  be  alone  ?  A  living  creature,  but  an  exile 
from  living  creatures.  No  longer  in  an  order;  perhaps  in  a 
chaos.  Oh  !  infinite  horror  ;  the  horror  of  absolute  solitude  ! 
what  can  be  compared  with  it? 

The  German  philosopher,  then,  has  much  to  say  for  himself; 
but  I  think  St.  Paul  has  more.  The  sense  of  immortality  is 
very  dreadful,  but  the  terror  is  not  one  which  the  thought  of 
death  relieves  us  of;  the  thought  of  death  awakens  it  in  us, 
— the  nearer  we  come  to  death,  the  more  it  faces  us.  Death, 
then,  is  the  enemy;  we  must  grapple  with  that  if  we  would 
overcome  the  other.  And  men  do  grapple  with  it.  There 
is  a  deep  conviction  in  their  minds,  that  death  is  utterly 
monstrous  anomalous;  something  to  which  they  cannot,  and 
should  not,  submit.  Generations  of  moralists  have  done  noth- 
ing whatever  to  enforce  the  experience  of  six  thousand  years. 
They  go  on  denouncing  the  folly  of  men  for  thinking  that  death 

not  a  necessity,  for  not  yielding  to  the  necessity  ;  the  heart 
of  man  does  not  heed  their  discourses  ;  their  own  hearts  do  not 
heed  them.  There  is  that  in  them  which  rebels  against  death, 
which  rebels  against  it  all  the  more  because  it  is  a  necessity. 
Till  you  explain  what  that  is,  till  you  justify  it,  you  will  not 
cure  it.  You  may  wonder  why  men  are  so  unreasonable,  why 
they  dread  death,  hate  it,  defy  it,  and  then  again  seem  to  long 
for  it,  to  suppose  that  it  is  the  only  end  of  their  struggle  of 
pain  and  doubt  and  despair ;  but  you  will  fall  into  the  same 


COMMUNITY  IN  DEATH  121 

unreasonableness  yourselves,  you  will  repeat  all  these  incon- 
sistencies as  soon  as  you  pass  from  the  professor's  chair  to  the 
couch  of  actual  suffering. 

I  cannot  see  that  the  belief  in  Christ's  death  would  be  any 
deliverance  from  these  awful  perplexities,  if  that  death  were  an 
artificial  arrangement  for  saving  us  from  a  future  penalty, 
while  the  actual  penalty  which  makes  us  tremble  is  incurred 
as  much  as  ever.  But  it  is  not  in  this  light  that  the  Cross 
ever  presented  itself  to  a  weary,  heavy-laden  man.  He  hears 
that  there  is  One  who  has  shared  his  death  and  the  death  of  the 
whole  world;  One  in  whom  God  delights  ;  One  in  whom  each 
man  may  delight.  If  this  news  is  believed,  the  separation 
of  death,  that  which  is  indeed  its  sting,  is  taken  away.  It 
is  now,  for  the  first  time,  common  to  the  individual  man 
with  his  race.  He  shall  not  die  alone.  He  shall  not  cease 
to  see  the  Lord,  even  the  Lord  in  the  land  of  the  living ;  no, 
nor  man  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  world.  A  new  and  mys- 
terious attraction  holds  him  to  both.  Death  becomes  a  bond 
to  them.  And  it  is  no  longer  a  mere  necessity.  Christ  chose 
it  because  it  is  ours.  We  can  choose  it  as  His  more  than  ours. 
What  I  am  saying,  has  no  direct  reference  to  our  belief  in  the 
issue  of  the  death.  That  may  be  always  implicitly  contained 
in  our  belief  of  the  death  itself.  We  should  not  be  satisfied 
with  it  if  we  did  not  see  in  it  the  pledge  of  triumph.  But 
Jesus  Christ,  as  the  Crucified,  has  been  an  object  of  rest  and 
comfort  to  multitudes  who  have  not  consciously  dwelt  on  His 
resurrection.  The  fact  is  undoubted,  and  we  do  not  rightly 
understand  ourselves  or  our  fellow-creatures  if  we  overlook  it. 
2.  Nor  are  we  accurate  observers  of  facts,  if  we  roughly 
confound  the  feelings  of  men  respecting  death,  with  those 
which  are  awakened  by  the  grave.  Philosophers  or  divines 
may  classify  them  together, — for  actual  men  they  are  different. 
"  He  is  gone,"  are  the  words  by  which  those  who  are  stand- 
ing by  a  bed-side,  declare  that  the  person  whom  they  knew,  is 
6 


122  EARTH  TO  EARTH. 

not  in  the  form  which  they  look  upon.  But  that  form  is  sacred, 
and  awful.  It  is  the  witness  and  pledge  that  he  has  been. 
They  cannot  look  at  it  in  its  stillness  and  repose,  and  satisfy 
themselves  with  any  thoughts  of  a  disembodied  spirit.  In 
some  way  or  other,  they  must  connect  it  with  the  friend  who 
spoke  with  them,  and  cared  for  them.  And  yet  the  instinct, 
"  Bury  the  dead  out  of  our  sight,"  is  also  deep  and  healthy  ; 
there  is  something  essentially  brutal  in  tho3e  people  who,  like 
the  Tartars,  can  bear  to  leave  corpses  exposed.  We  call  that 
which  the  earth  encloses,  that  which  it  devours  and  assimilates 
to  itself,  "remains;"  or, "  what  is  mortal ;"  we  have  a  horror  of 
identifying  it  with  the  actual  body  which  was  so  precious  to 
us.  We  shrink  from  the  mummy  as  from  a  weak,  irreverent, 
materialistic  experiment  to  preserve  that  which  was  meant  to 
perish.  The  earth  or  ashes  seem  to  us  far  better  ;  we  would 
rather  east  the  dearest  form  into  the  sea,  than  give  it  that  hor- 
rible,  unnatural  kind  of  endaranc  These  are  true  feelings, 
which  are  found  strongest  in  the  truest  minds;  yet  they  are 
very  inexplicable.  The  body  associates  itself  with  any  thoughts 
we  have  of  personality  and  immortality ;  that  which  lies  in  the 
earth,  or  is  consumed  w7ith  the  fire,  we  naturally  and  inevita- 
bly associate  with  decay,  putrefaction,  destruction.  It  is  e; 
for  superstition  to  confound  the  feelings,  and  to  invest  relics 
with  the  sacredness  which  we  must  attach  to  body;  none  of  its 
appeals  to  the  heart  have  been  so  successful.  But  the  eon 
science  bears  witness  against  the  confusion,  and  longs  for  a 
deliverance  from  it.  "  HE  was  buried."  He  the  Kin<r  of  men, 
the  true  Man,  the  Son  of  the  Highest,  has  been  in  the  grave. 
He  knows  its  secrets, not  as  a  stranger,  but  as  an  inhabitant. 
I  believe  myriads  of  sorrowers  have  found  comfort  in  that 
conviction,  which  all  their  speculations  could  not  give  them, 
but  rather  took  away.  His  burial,  they  feel,  ought  to  explain 
that  which  all  others  cannot  explain.     And  they  do  get  the 


THE  ABYSS  OF   SPACE.  123 

explanation  into  their  hearts,  though  their  understandings  may 
still  be  much  bewildered. 

3.  But  besides  and  beyond  this  narrow  house,  there  are  fields 
of  speculation,  in  which  men  have  lost  themselves  almost  from 
the  beginning  of  the.earth  until  now.  Lord  Byron  has  brought 
Cain  into  the  Abyss  of  Space,  Lucifer  being  his  guide  thither. 
No  conception  can  be  truer.  The  first  murderer  must  have 
traversed  those  regions;  innumerable  footsteps  have  followed 
his,  all  perhaps  under  the  same  conduct.  A  dark,  formless 
world,  in  which  there  is  nothing  for  ttie  eye  to  dwell  upon,  for 
the  heart  to  embrace,  where  all  is  vague  and  monstrous, — this 
may  become,  this  has  become,  the  habitation  of  human  intel- 
lects, formed  in  God's  image.  We  can  come  into  such  utter 
dreariness,  because  we  are  spirits,  because  we  have  a  home 
and  a  Father,  because  we  can  have  no  rest  till  we  find  that 
home  and  that  Father.  If  we  were  merely  children  of  earth, 
we  might  be  satisfied  with  its  pictures  and  images ;  these 
would  be  all  in  all  to  us.  Being  better  than  this,  we  must 
make  a  hell  for  ourselves,  if  we  cannot  find  a  heaven.  Yes,  a 
hell !  the  simple  language  is  the  best.  I  will  not  quarrel  about 
the  etymology  of  Hades.  It  may  mean  the  unseen,  or  the 
formless.  But  the  unseen  becomes  to  the  bewildered  con- 
science the  formless ;  the  negation  of  a  world,  the  darkest 
conception  a  man  can  have  of  that  which  is  without  himself. 
He  brings  into  it  a  more  terrible  darkness,  that  which  is  ivithin 
himself;  the  worm  of  conscience  which  he  cannot  kill,  the  fire 
he  can  never  quench.  To  be  delivered  from  that,  is  to  be 
delivered  from  sin.  But  how  may  he  be  delivered  from  the 
imagination  to  which  sin  has  imparted  its  own  horror  and  con- 
fusion ?  What  glimpse  of  daylight  can  he  discern  in  the  track- 
less abyss?  "  He  descended  into  hell"  Mighty  words  !  which 
I  do  not  pretend  that  I  can  penetrate,  or  reduce  under  any 
forms  of  the  intellect.  If  I  could,  T  think  they  would  be  of 
little  worth  to  me.     But  I  accept  them  as  news  that  there  is 


r 


124  MEANING  OF  HADES. 

no  corner  of  God's  universe  over  which  His  love  has  not  brood- 
ed, none  over  which  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man  has 
not  asserted  His  dominion.  I  claim  a  right  to  tell  this  news 
to  every  peasant  and  beggar  of  the  land.  I  may  bid  him  re- 
joice, and  give  thanks,  and  sing  merry  songs  to  the  God  who 
made  him,  because  there  is  nothing  created  which  his  Lord 
and  Muster  has  not  redeemed,  of  which  He  is  not  the  King;  I 
may  bid  him  fear  nothing  around  him  or  beneath  him  while  ho 
trusts  in  Him.  I  may  beseech  him  to  watch  continually,  lest 
he  should  lose  his  confidence  in  the  divine  and  human  Saviour 
and  Conqueror,  or  forget  that  lie  has  saved  and  conquered 
for  his  brethren  as  well  as  himself.  I  may  tell  him  that  if  he 
does,  he  will  become    agaio   the  self-seekii.  f- worshipping, 

cowardly  creature  the  Devil  is  always  seeking  to  make  him, 
and  that  then  he  will  assuredly  fill  into  a  condition  of  utter 
falsehood,  in  which  all  real  things  will  seem  to  him  unreal,  and 
all  unreal  real;  in  which  the  worm  and  the  fire  of  conscience 
will  become  ever  more  and  more   intolerable. 

4.  The  Gospel  narratives  of  the  Resurrection  are  only  a  little 
longer  and  more  minute  than  those  which  record  the  fact  of 
Christ's  burial.  The  women  go  to  the  sepulchre,  they  find  the 
stone  rolled  away,  angels  ask  them  why  they  seek  the  living 
among  the  dead,  lie  is  not  there,  lie  is  risen.  They  tell 
Simon  Peter.  He  and  John  go  to  the  sepulchre.  One  stays 
without,  one  looks  at  the  linen  cloth  and  the  napkin.  Tl 
tell  it  to  the  rest.  There  is  wonder  and  doubt. — This  is  the 
story.  What !  only  this  ?  no  greater  array  of  proofs  to  secure 
our  assent  for  that  which  stands  solitary  in  the  history  of  the 
world  ?     No  more  overpowerin  [monies than  that  of  tie 

women  and  these  fishermen,  in  support  of  an  event  which  is  to 
be  the  basis  of  a  world-belief?  No  ! — meditate  the  fact  well 
— this  is  all.  Diligent  men,  in  later  times,  may  have  shown, 
with  great  skill,  why  these  fishermen  and  women  were  entitled 
to  credit ;  why  their  simplicity  and  their  own  doubts  confirm 


THE  RESURRECTION.  125 

their  trustworthiness ;  what  they  endured  for  their  persever- 
ance in  their  story,  &c.  Those  to  whom  the  word  of  the  Insur- 
rection first  came,  received  it  simply  as  a  message  which, 
through  whatever  feeble  voices  it  might  reach  them,  must  have 
been  sent  them  from  a  Father  in  Heaven,  because  no  one  else 
knew  how  much  they  wanted  it.  If  they  had  a  Father,  if  He 
wished  them  to  know  that  they  had,  this,  they  felt,  must  be 
His  way  of  telling  them.  Between  them  and  God  there  had 
been  a  dark  impassable  gulf;  if  that  were  not  in  some  way 
filled  up,  they  might  talk  of  Him,  use  His  name  in  their  peti- 
tions, dream  that  He  meant  them  well,  but  nothing  had  actually 
been  done  for  them ;  no  one  hope  of  their  hearts  had  been  sat- 
isfied, no  dread  had  been  taken  away.  If  there  was  no  person 
who  was  actually  one  with  God  and  one  with  man,  the  gulf 
must  remain  for  ever  unfilled  ;  if  there  was,  it  was  not  incredi- 
ble that  He  had  entered  into  man's  death,  grave,  Hell  ;  it  was 
absolutely  incredible  that  He  should  be  holden  of  them.  Every- 
thing such  a  Being  did,  must  be  actual,  not  fictitious ;  seeming 
could  have  no  relation  to  His  nature;  what  men  knew  of  suf- 
fering and  fear  He  must  have  known.  But  to  suppose  that  His 
Father  forgot  Him,  did  not  own  Him,  did  not  claim  Him, 
because  He  was  exhibiting  the  fulness  of  His  love,  and  carry- 
ing out  His  purposes,  wTould  have  been  a  shock  to  the  heart 
and  reason  such  as  they  had  never  been  called  to  undergo  yet. 
Here  was  the  evidence  for  the  Resurrection  ;  with  this  did  the 
preachers  of  it  subdue  the  world. 

And  this,  I  believe,  must  and  will  be  the  evidence  of  it  in 
all  generations  to  come,  as  much  as  it  was  in  the  first.  The 
testimony  will  be  mighty,  because  the  thing  testified  of  is  that 
which  all  men,  everywhere,  are  ^v  an  ting, — which  some  who  do 
not  crave  for  what  is  peculiar  and  distinguishing,  who  must 
have  that  which  is  human,  are  taught  by  many  hard  processes 
that  they  want.  But  though  I  hold  this  evidence  to  be  the 
highest,  and  to  be  that  which  all  other  kinds  of  it  only  serve 


126  NEW  EVIDENCE. 

to  corroborate,  I  am  convinced  that  the  experience  of  eighteen 
centuries, — our  experience  especially  of  the  confusions  and  con- 
tradictions into  which  churchmen  and  church  doctors  have 
fallen  respecting  the  state  of  men  here  and  hereafter,  the  expe- 
rience that  is  appealed  to  as  conclusive  against  our  Creed, — 
illustrates  the  words  I  have  been  spunking  of  in  this  Essay,  as 
they  could  not  have  been  illustrated  in  the  first  ages. 

1.  We  speak  continually  of  death  as  the  separation  of  the 
soul  from  the  body.  If  we  try  to  give  ourselves  an  account 
of  what  we  mean  by  Soul  and  Body,  we  should  say,  I  suppose, 
roughly,  that  the  soul  is  that  with  which  we  think  ;  the  body 
that  which  moyes  from  place  to  place,  and  to  which  certain 
organs  of  sense  belong.  If  this  be  so,  how  little  does  our  lan- 
guage correspond  to  the  fact  which  it  tries  to  describe  !  Death, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  any  of  the  phenomena  it  presents 
to  us,  affects  the  powers  of  thinking,  of  motion,  of  sensation, 
equally:  our  natural  impression  would  be,  that  whatever  influ- 
ence it  produces  on  one,  it  produces  also  on  the  other.  But 
that  strange  "  sense  of  immortality"  which  the  benevolent  Ger- 
man is  so  eager  to  extinguish,  would  not  allow  people  to  fol- 
low this  conclusion  of  nature;  something,  they  said,  must  sur- 
vive. The  soul  would  go  to  Hades  ;  the  hero  himself  would 
be  a  prey  to  the  birds  and  dogs.  We  have  adopted  the  lan- 
guage very  nearly  :  often  we  adopt  it  altogether,  even  though 
we  have  a  confused  impression  that  the  soul  has  more  to  do 
with  the  hero  himself,  and  the  body  with  that  which  the  dogs 
or  birds,  devour.  But  when  that  conviction  has  thoroughly 
taken  possession  of  a  man,  when  his  "sense  of  immortality" 
has  begun  to  express  itself  in  the  only  language  which  can 
express  it,  and  he  sa}rs,  u  I  shall  survive,  /cannot  perish  !" 
then,  first,  all  that  horror  which  Strauss  would  deliver  us  from 
is  awakened  ;  then,  secondly,  it  becomes  impossible  for  the 
man  to  divide  his  soul  from  that  which  has  been  durino-  all  his 
experience  of  it,  its  yoke-fellow.     If  he  has  cultivated  his  pow- 


SOUL  AND   BODY.  127 

ers  of  reflection,  and  has  studied  the  forms  of  language,  he 
may  learn  gradually  to  find  that  the  names  which  have  stood 
so  distinct  in  men's  discourses,  have  distinct  realities  answering 
to  them.  But  he  will  not  allow  his  imperfect  psychology  to 
interfere  with  the  witness  of  his  conscience — that  he,  who  uses 
equally  the  powers  of  thought  and  the  powers  of  motion  and 
sensation  which  have  been  entrusted  to  him,  is  responsible  for 
both  ; — that,  however  they  may  be  divided  or  united,  they  are 
both  intimately  attached  to  his  personality. 

If,  then,  there  comes  upon  him  a  much  stronger  sense  of  his 
connexion  with  deeds  done  in  the  body  than  he  had  while  he  was 
drawing  those  artificial  lines,  and  also  a  much  stronger  convic- 
tion of  the  dignity  and  sacredness  of  the  body  than  those  can 
entertain  who  would  separate  it  from  the  soul, — the  marvel  of 
death,  which  seems  to  extinguish  soul  as  well  as  body,  and  yet 
which  he  can  neither  hope  nor  fear  will  extinguish  him,  pre- 
sents itself  under  a  new  aspect.  He  must  have  a  solution  of  it. 
The  solution  must  be  one  which  does  not  hide  any  part  of  the 
fact,  which  does  not  impose  a  notion  upon  him  as  a  substitute 
for  the  fact.  The  Scripture  says  plainly,  that  Christ  poured 
out  His  soul,  as  well  as  his  body  to  death.  The  description 
of  His  agony  and  crucifixion  has  been  received  by  those  who 
have  believed  it,  practically,  if  not  in  name,  as  the  history  of 
1jie  death  of  a  soul  as  well  as  of  a  bod}r.  Those  who  have 
wished  to  represent  his  death  as  different  from  all  others,  for. 
the  sake  of  enhancing  its  worth,  have  dwTelt  upon  this  as  its 
most  wonderful  characteristic.  To  me  it  seems  the  most  won- 
derful, because  from  it  I  am  able  to  learn  what  other  deaths 
are, — what  the  death  of  man  is.  Christ  gave  up  all  that  was 
His  own, — He  gave  Himself  to  His  Father.  He  disclaimed 
any  life  which  did  not  belong  to  Him  in  virtue  of  His  union 
wyith  the  Eternal  God.  It  is  our  privilege  to  disclaim  any  life 
which  does  not  belong  to  us  in  virtue  of  our  union  with  Him. 
This  would  be  an  obvious  truth,  if  we  were  indeed  created  and 


128  RELICS. 

constituted  in  Him, — if  He  was  the  root  of  our  humanity.  We 
should  not  then  have  any  occasion  to  ask  how  much  perishes 
or  survives  in  the  hour  of  death.  We  should  assume  that  all 
must  perish,  to  the  end  that  all  may  survi  - 

2.    Such  a  conclusion  would    go    far,  I  think,  to  help  us 
through  that  terrible  perplexity,  into  which  I  said  we  all  fell, 
respecting  the  body  and  that  which  we  commit  to  the  ground. 
j  As  long  as  we  suppose  the  mystery  of  death  to  be  the  division 
of  soul  and  body,  so  long  we  must  cling,  with  a  deep  love,  to 
those  remains  which  yet  we  are  forced  to  regard  with  a  kind 
of  loathing.     We  shall  be  ready  to  believe  stories  of  miracles 
wrought  by  them,  we  shall  be  half  inclined  to  worship  them. 
Or  if  we  reject  this  temptation, — because  Romanists  have  fallen 
into  it,  and  we  think  it  must  therefore  be  shunned, — we  shall 
take  our  own  Protestant  way  of  asserting  the  sanctity  of  relit 
by  maintaining  that  at  a  certain  day  they  will  all  be  gathered 
together,  and  that  the  very  body  to  which  they  once  belonged 
will  be  re-constructed  out  of  them.     That  immense  demand  is 
made  upon  our  faith — a  demand  in  comparison  of  which  all 
notions  of  cures  wrought  at  tombs  fade  into  nothing, — by 
divines  who  would   yet  shrink  instinctively  from  saying  that 
what  they  call  a  living  body  here,  is  a  mere  congeries  of  par 
tides, — who  would  denounce  any  man  as  a  materialist  if  he 
said  that.     This  demand  is  made  upon  us  by  divines,  who  use 
as  a  text-book  of  Christian  evidences,  "  Butler's  Analogy,"  the 
ground  chapter  of  which,  "  On  the  Future  State,"  is  based  on 
the  argument  that  there  is  no  proof  that  death  destroys  any 
of  our  living  powers, — those  of  the  body  more  than  those  of 
the  soul ; — and  which  distinctly  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact, 
that  ordinary  attrition  may  destroy  the  particles  of  which  the 
matter  of  our  bodies  consists,  more  than  once  in  the  course  of 
a  life ;  so  that  nothing  can  be  inferred  from  our  depositing  the 
whole  of  that  matter  at  the  moment  of  dissolution.     This  de- 
mand is  made  upon  our  faith  by  divines,  who  read  to  every 


IDENTITY  OF    THE  BODY.  129 

mourner  as  he  goes  with  them  to  the  grave  of  a  friend,  that 
corruption  cannot  inherit  incorruption  ;  that  flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God. 

But  though  I  speak  of  this  opinion  as  "  a  demand  upon  our 
faith,"  I  hold  it  to  be  the  fruit  of  our  unbelief.  If  we  did 
attach  any  meaning  to  that  expression  upon  which  St.  Peter  at 
Jerusalem,  St.  Paul  at  Antioch,  dwelt  so  earnestly,  that 
Christ's  body  saw  no  corruption ;  if  we  did  believe  that  He 
who  was  without  sin  showed  forth  to  us  in  Himself  what  is 
the  true  normaF  condition'  of  humanity,  and  showed  forth  in 
that  body  of  His  what  the  human  body  is, — we  should  not 
dare,  I  think,  any  longer  to  make  the  corrupt,  degrading, 
shameful  accidents  which  necessarily  belong  to  that  body  in 
each  one  of  us,  because  we  have  sinned,  the  rule  by  which  we 
judge  of  it  here :  how  much  less  should  we  suppose  these  to 
be  the  elements  out  of  which  its  high,  and  restored,  and  spi- 
ritual estate  can  ever  be  fashioned  ? 

It  is  impossible  not  to  perceive,  under  this  notion  of  a  resur- 
rection of  relics, — of  that  corruption  which  our  Lord  did  not 
see, — a  very  deep  conviction  that  the  body  of  our  humiliation 
must  be  identical  with  the  body  redeemed  and  renewed.  This 
conviction  is  so  rooted  in  the  heart,  that  it  will  absolutely  force 
nature,  met,  Scripture,  everything,  into  accordance  with  it.  I 
must  be,  in  all  respects,  the  same  person  that  I  was  before  I 
put  off  my  tabernacle;  therefore,  these  elements,  which  were 
once  attached  to  my  body,  must  come  from  all  the  ends  of 
the  earth  to  constitute  it.  What  a  witness  for  the  reality  of 
a  belief,  that  it  can  sustain  such  a  contradiction  as  this 
rather  than  cease  to  exist!  All  through  my  life  on  earth, 
soul  and  body  are  groaning  together  under  a  weight  of  decay 
and  mortality, — are  crying  for  deliverance  from  it.  An  houi 
comes  which  seems  to  say  that  their  emancipation  has  takes 
place ;  that  these  Adam  conditions  belong  no  more  to  the  man , 
that  as  to  them  he  is  utterly  dead.  The  preacher  of  God's 
6* 


130  DEATH  IN  ADAM,  LIFE  IN  CHRIST. 

Gospel  runs  about  saying,  "  Oh,  no  !  it  is  a  mistake  !  These 
witnesses  of  the  fall, — these  pledges  of  pain  and  shame,  from 
which  fever,  consumption,  cholera,  after  days  or  years  of  suf- 
fering, have  at  last  set  your  friend  free, — belong  to  him  inse- 
parably, necessarily,  eternally.  They  are  that  body,  the  most 
curious,  wonderful,  glorious,  of  God's  works  ;  they  are  not,  as 
.your  consciences  tell  you,  as  the  Scripture  tells  you,  the  proofs 
that  this  wonderful  fabric  has  suffered  a  monstrous  and  cruel 
outrage;  that  it  needs  a  deliverer  to  raise  it  and  renew  it." 
A  strange  Gospel,  one  would  think  !  And  yet  one  which  men 
receive,  which  they  will  continue  to  receive  and  hold,  rather 
than  think  that  they  are  to  perish,  or  that  they  are  to  have 
merely  a  visionary  soul-life. 

11  As  in  Adam  all  die,  so,  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive.'1'' 
This  is  St.  Paul's  broad  statement  in  that  passage  of  his  writ- 
ings which  deals  specially  and  formally  with  this  subject.  Tt 
is  in  Btrict  accordance  with  all  his  other  doctrine.  Christ  is 
the  Lord  of  Man,  the  Life-giver  Ojf  .Man.  the  True  Man ;  Adam 
is  the  root  of  his  individuality,  of  his  die  of  his  death.   All 

is  strictly  in  order.  Death  has  its  accomplishment:  the  Adam 
dies,  and  is  buried,  and  sees  corruption;  Christ  gives  Himself 
to  death,  and  sees  no  corruption.  If  a  man  has  an  Adam  na- 
ture and  is  also  related  by  a  higher  and  closer  affinity  to  Christ, 
— is  the  effect  of  that  union  that  he  shall  be  redeemed,  body 
and  soul,  out  of  the  corruption  which  is  deposited  in  the  grave, 
or  that  it  shall  be  his  future,  as  it  has  been  his  past,  inherit- 
ance? 

But  has  not  St.  Paul  spoken  of  a  change  to  take  place  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye?  and  has  he  not  connected  this  with  the 
last  trump?  I  hope  at  some  other  time  to  examine  the  whole 
of  this  great  chapter,  and  to  see  what  it  actually  reveals  to  us. 
But  I  cannot  refuse  even  here  to  meet  this  special  objection, 
it  is  for  many  reasons  so  practically  important. 

If,  then,  there  was  no  allusion  to  that  last  trump  of  the 


THE  LAST  TRUMP.  131 

Archangel  in  this  sentence,  I  do  not  think  we  should  any  of 
us  have  hesitated  to  believe  that  St.  Paul,  in  strict  conformity 
with  all  his  teaching  respecting  our  death  in  Adam,  and  our 
life  in  Christ,  was  unfolding  the  mystery, — so  deep,  so  necessary 
to  all,  so  contrary  to  all  the  notions  of  the  Corinthians, — that 
men,  instead  of  sleeping  in  their  graves,  would  be  changed  in 
a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  And  I  believe  no  one 
could  have  hesitated  in  any  particular  case  to  have  applied  the 
words.  Nay,  I  do  not  find  that  men  hesitate,  even  with  their 
customary  notions  and  opinions,  to  apply  them  now.  As  they 
watch  the  last  breath  departing  from  a  dear  friend,  they  seize 
the  language,  they  feel  they  have  a  right  to  it.  They  say,  "  A 
moment  a°'0  he  was  mortal,  and  now  he  is  free  !  It  has  been  but 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  what  a  change  has  come  !"  Such 
are  the  uncojitepioug  utterances  of  men's  faith  and  hope, 
grounded,  as  they  surely  think,  and,  as  I  am  convinced  they 
have  a  rigb*  to  think,  on  St.  Paul's  words. 

Nor  d*es  the  thought  then  disturb  them,  that  there  is  a 
want  o  identity  between  him  that  has  been  and  him  that  is. 
Though  the  decaying,  agonized  frame  is  lying  calm  and  at  rest, 
the-  do  not  then  doubt  that  he  who  spoke  to  them  a  few  mo- 
nvnts  before,  did  not  derive  his  powers  of  speech,  any  more 
/nan  the  celestial  smile  which  still  remains  on  the  clay,  from  that 
clay.  Faith  and  reason,  however  crushed  and  confounded,  are 
too  strong,  in  uh<  hour  of  reality,  for  a  notion  so  cold  and  so 
inhuman.  ^s. 

«  But  the  trump  of  th.  \rchang;el  !  that  seems  to  put  all  be- 
lief of  a  resurrection  of  the  *<■  tQ  &n  inconce}vabje  distance, 
una  to  make  the  hw^^esis,  whio.  identifies  it  with  a  resurrec- 
fi™  ~?        -"mJS  after  a11  tne  only  scv    ,       i  ,,,»•.,   it. 

9«£   become,  so   intertwined    withTj  Tp  ctatn  of  a 

I',       Z  m        SaCred  'n0ral  p,'iDCiPleS'  that  w«  n-y  -ell 
tremble  when  we  encounter  it.     If  I  did  not  feel  that  morality, 


132  PICTURES. 

and  godliness  and  the  practical  belief  of  a  judgment,  were  put 
into  the  greatest  risk  by  the  confusions  which  we  are  tolerat- 
ing respecting  these  words,  I  would  gladly  pass  them  by.  But 

I  dare  not  be  silent,  because  I  see  what  a  mass  of  unbelief 
and  indifference  is  congealing  in  men's  minds  under  a  thin 
coating  of  apparent  orthodoxy. 

I   scarcely    need   ask  any    Protestant  whether   the    words 

II  trump  of  the  Archangel"  convey  to  him  precisely  the  im- 
pression which  he  would  derive  from  the  picture  of  Michael 
Angelo.  He  is  likely  to  answer  with,  what  I  should  think, 
rather  excessive  and  unnecessary  indignation,  that  none  of  his 
impressions  are  derived  from  pictures ;  tint  he  has  the  great- 
est horror  of  their  sensualizing  effect ;  that  of  course  he  does 
not  dream  of  a  material  trumpet  1  do  not  *se  this  language 
myself.  I  have  learnt  from  pictures,  and  am  willing  to  learn 
from  them.  I  believe  I  might  learn  much  frdn  this  one  of 
Michael  Angelo's,  which  would  do  me  great  ta>d,  which 
would  give  me  E  th,  distinctly  n  depth,  t,  my  own 
convictions,  and  to  the  words  of  inspiration.  But  i  accept 
the  statement,  from  which  I  am  sure  no  pious  and  inte^,,^,^ 
Romanist  would  for  an  instant  dissent,  that  the  mere  trum,^ 
whether  read  of  in  a  book,  or  seen  in  a  picture,  though  it  n 
be  helpful  to  the  mind  in  delivering  it  from  vagueness,  is  sj 
bolical ;  that  to  give  it  an  actual  material  counterpart,  would 
be  gross  and  superstitious  in  the  last  and  lowest  degree. 

I  should  scarcely  think  it  necessary  tr*uakethis  remark,  if  I 
did  not  perceive  painful  proofs  that  r  *r  zoa'> — to  a  great  extent, 
I  think,  an  honest  zeal— against  /m°oIism,  sometimes  involves 
us  in  a  confusion,  to  which  u0se Nvho  are^,"uted  in  it,  (hrW 
thereby  I  allow  expo--  to  other  temptations,)  are  m 
subject  We  ad^-hat  we  suppose  is  a  spiritual  substrtu 
for  some  literal  or  material  representation.  *  e  find  we  DM  e 
got  only  a  shadow  or  phantom.  We  must  fill  up  the  hollow  in  our 
hearts  by  some  means ;  and  we  unconsciously  add  on  the  very 


MEANING  OF  THE  TRUMPET.  133 

driest  and  most  material  conception,  to  the  (so  called)  spiritual 
one,  as  a  necessary  support  to  its  feebleness.  I  could  give  in- 
stances upon  instances  of  this  strange  intellectual  hocus-pocus  ; 
the  neglect  of  them  by  divines  is,  I  believe,  contributing  most 
effectually  to  the  return  of  Romanist  notions  and  habits.  I  do 
not  therefore  think  it  unnecessary  to  bring  each  person  who 
speaks  of  the  Archangel's  trumpet  distinctly  to  book,  and  to 
make  him  confess, — though  he  may  be  disposed  to  shrink  from 
the  acknowledgment  as  too  obvious  and  humiliating, — that  he 
does  not  mean  such  a  trumpet  as  men  play  upon;  that  he 
would  count  it  shockingly  irreverent  to  let  the  thoughts  of  such 
an  instrument  dwell  in  his  mind  in  connexion  with  such  a 
subject. 

But  are  we  then  to  dismiss  the  phrase  as  if  it  imported  no- 
thing to  us,  because  we  cannot  reduce  it  to  this  signification, 
which  would  be  actually  nothing  ?  I  apprehend  that  it  has  the 
most  serious  import,  and  that  the  Scriptures  tell  us  what  it  is. 
The  Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  whose  ears  the  trum- 
pet that  sounded  loud  and  long  on  Sinai  was  ever  repeating 
its  notes,  did  not  allow  their  countrymen  to  rest  in  the  old 
image.  Every  rending  of  the  mountains,  every  earthquake, 
everything  wiiich  idolators  looked  upon  as  the  sign  of  the 
wrath  of  the  tyrant  before  whom  they  trembled,  everything 
that  the  mere  philosopher  calls  an  ordinary  convulsion  of  na- 
ture, was  with  them  an  Archangel's  trumpet,  declaring  that 
the  righteous  and  everlasting  King  was  coming  forth  to  punish 
the  earth  for  its  iniquities,  and  to  set  truth  and  judgment  in  the 
midst  of  it.  This  was  the  teaching, — the  uniform  teaching, — 
of  the  old  seers,  in  whose  school  St.  Paul's  mind  was  formed. 
Are  we  to  suppose  that  he  had  a  less  comprehensive,  less  spi- 
ritual idea  of  the  divine  method  than  they  had, — that  he  desert- 
ed them  for  some  more  heathenish  conception  ?     Are  we  not 

1  oi*  to  conclude  that  he  was  carrying  out  their  truth  to  its 


134  JUDGMENT  OF  NATIONS  AND  MEN. 

highest  power;  that  whatever  they  meant  he  meant  still  more 
perfectly  ? 

If  you  ask  whether  he  meant  that  there  would  sound  in  his 
own  day  an  Archangel's  trumpet,  which  would  call  the  nations, 
— his    own    first, — into    God's  judgment,  and   that  a  mighty 
change  in  the  condition  of  them  all,  the  beginning  of  what  may 
be  rightly  called  a  new  world,  would  follow  upon  that  judg- 
ment, I  should  answer,  Undoubtedly  I  think  so  ;  I  can  put  no 
other  construction   upon   his   language;  and   I    can   put   no 
other  construction  upon  the  facts  of  history,  except  that  they 
fulfilled  his  language.    But  if  you  ask  further  how  lie  connect- 
ed this  with  the  condition  of  each  individual  man,  who  might 
or  might  not  be  alive  at  that  crisis  in  the  world's  history,  I 
ihould  say,  since  he  held  that  in  Adam  all  die,  and  that  in 
Christ  all  are  made  alive,  he  of  necessity  believed  also  that  a 
day  was  at  hand   for  every  man,  a  day  of  revelation   and  dis- 
covery, a  day  which  should  show  him  what  life  was,  and  what 
(hath  was;   what   his   own  true  condition,  what  his  own  false 
condition  was.   And  everything  which  warned  a  man  that  such 
a  day  was  at  hand,  which  roused  him  to  seek  for  light,  and  to 
ily  from   darkness,  was  a  note  of  the  Archangel's  trumpet ;   a 
voice  bidding   him   awake   that  Christ  the  Lord  of  his  spirit 
might  give  him  light.     And  in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  by  a  fit  of  apoplexy,  by  the  dagger  of  an  assassin,  the 
vesture  of  mortality  which   hides  that  light  from   it,   might 
drop   off  from   him,  and    he    might    be  changed.      What  had 
merely  sounded  to  him  here  as  some  common  earthly  note  of 
preparation  for  death,  would  then  be  recogni>ed  as  the  Arch- 
angel's trumpet  calling  him  to  account,  asking  him  whether  the 
light  that  had  been  vouchsafed  to  him,  whilst  shadows  were 
still  about  him,  had  been  faithfully  used,  or  whether  he  had 
loved  darkness  rather  than  light,  because  his  deeds  were  evil  ? 
In  both  these  anticipations — if  they  are,  or  can  be  separat- 
ed— I  accept  St.  Paul  and  the  other  Scriptures  as 


DISCOURSES  OF  PREACHERS.  135 

respecting  the  condition  of  us  who  are  living  in  this  later  pe- 
riod of  the  world.  I  look  for  a  judgment  of  Nations  and 
Churches  to  wind  up  our  age,  as  he  looked  for  one  to  wind  up 
his  age.  I  believe  the  trumpet  of  the  Archangel  has  been 
sounding  in  every  century  of  the  modern  world,  that  it  is 
sounding  now,  and  will  sound  more  clearly  before  the  end 
comes.  But  I  do  not,  for  this,  allow  myself  to  doubt  that  it  is 
sounding  in  the  ears  of  each  individual  man  ;  that  a  time  will 
come,  when  the  light  will  burst  in  upon  him,  and  show  him 
things  as  they  are ;  when  he  will  know  that  there  is  all  life 
for  him  in  Christ,  and  that  there  is  all  death  in  himself.  I  can- 
not persuade  myself  that  the  eloquent  words  I  have  heard  from 
preachers,  in  wmich  this  truth  was  pressed  home  upon  the 
consciences  of  men,  in  which  they  were  told  how  all  personal 
and  family  visitations  were  messages  from  heaven,  trumpets 
of  the  Archangel  calling  them  to  repentance,  were  merely  tine 
metaphors  which,  if  possible,  were  to  produce  a  startling 
effect,  but  which  meant  nothing.  It  is  indeed  "  fiddling  while 
Kome  is  burning,"  for  God's  ambassadors  to  be  indulging  in 
fine  talk  about  His  judgment,  which  their  congregation  are 
not  to  take  as  real.  I  must  suppose  that  they  think  such  lan- 
guage not  metaphorical,  but  the  translation  of  metaphors  into 
reality.  And  if  so,  there  is  nothing  in  this  part  of  the  teach- 
ing of  St.  Paul,  to  hinder  us  from  accepting  the  other  part  as 
a  confirmation,  not  a  contradiction,  of  the  inference  which  we 
should  draw  from  the  New  Testament  generally, — that  Christ 
was  buried  in  order  that  the  body  might  be  claimed  as  an  heir 
of  life;  as  redeemed  from  corruption. 

3.  Supposing  this  to  be  the  doctrine'which  is  involved  in  the 
belief  of  Christ's  descent  into  the  grave,  another  enormous 
weight  would  be  taken  from  the  human  spirit, — a  weight 
which  the  heart  and  the  understanding  have  been  equally 
unable  to  bear.  We  are  told  to  believe  in  a  place  of  disem- 
bodied spirits.     According  to  all  the  maxims  which  we  ordina- 


136  DISEMBODIED  SPIRITS. 

rily  recognise,  place  appertains  to  body  ;  it  is  only  of  body  that 
you  can  predicate  it.  And  this  logical  principle,  so  far  from 
beino-at  variance  with  our  higher  instincts,  entirely  accords  with 
them.  People  talk  of  their  friends  as  disembodied.  When  ti 
think  of  them,  they  are  obliged  to  suppose  them  clothed  with 
bodies.  They  admit  the  necessity ;  it  is  part,  they  say,  of  their 
weakness.  They  ought  to  feel  otherwise.  They  ought  to  com- 
pel themselves  to  imagine  that  which  they  cannot  imagine; 
that  which  they  do  only  imagine  at  the  peril  of  a  direct  contra- 
diction !  "  But  Scripture  demands  it."  How,  and  where  ?  It 
speaks  of  the  bodies  of  saints  coming  forth,  and  showing  them- 
selves after  the  Resurrection.  It  speaks  of  Moses  and  Elias 
appearing  to  the  disciples.  It  records  acts  of  our  Lord  on 
earth,  by  which  bodies  are  recalled  from  the  unseen  region 
into  ours.  "Oh!  but  these  are  exceptions.''  Exactly;  and 
Scripture  presents  nothing  but  exceptions  to  your  theory.  \[) 
however,  I  accept  the  Scriptures  as  teaching  me  laws  by 
instances,  and  so  correcting  my  theories,  and  dispossessing  me 
of  them,  I  think  I  am  at  least  as  much  bowing  my  neck  to  its 
authority  as  you  are,  even  though  the  result  may  be  that  I  am 
not  obliged  to  force  my  conscience  or  my  intellect  into  an 
impossible  position. 

"  But  are  we  not,  then,  to  believe  in  a  Hades  ?"  It  was  not 
a  duty,  but  a  terrible  necessity,  which  led  men  of  the  old 
world  to  speak  of  Hades.  They  did  not  believe  in  it — there 
was  nothing  to  believe.  The.  void  beyond  the  grave  had  never 
been  entered ;  they  could  do  nothing  but  mark  it  down  in 
their   charts  by   some  name   which  left  an  impression  of  its 

uue,  inaccessible  character.  But  the  heart  was  so  impatient 
of  the  void,  that  all  earthly  forms  and  pictures  must  be  thrown 
into  it,  if,  perhaps,  it  might  be  tilled.  It  cannot  be  ail  Sty- 
a  darkness  ;  there  may  be  verdant  meadows  here  and  there 
scattered  in  the  midst  of  the  desolation ;  the  forms  of  human 
justice  must  be  there;  /Eacus  and  Ehadamanthus  will  decide 


THE  EARTH  A  PLACE  OF  SPIRITS.  137 

which  of  the  shadows  that  pass  by  them  shall  be  consigned  to 
the  better,  which  to  the  more  hateful  region.  The  Jew,  taaght 
in  the  law  of  his  fathers,  dared  not  let  his  fancy  indulge  in 
such  creations.  There  was  no  Elysium  in  his  Hades.  He 
tied  from  the  f|jghtful  vision  of  mere  death  and  darkness,  to 
trust  in  the  living  God.  The  dead  he  was  sure  could  not 
praise  Him  :  if  God  had  been  his  hope  and  deliverer  all  through 
his  pilgrimage,  He  would  not  desert  him  at  last.  He  would 
not  leave  his  soul  in  Hades,  nor  suffer  that  which  had  been 
holy  in  His  eyes  to  see  corruption.  Yet  the  fact  of  corruption 
was  before  his  eyes ;  the  grave  did  receive  its  victim ;  the 
worms  did  gnaw  upon  him.  Was  this  confusion  to  last  for 
ever  ?  I  believe  that  the  words,  "  His.  soul  was  not  left  in 
Hades ;  His  body  did  not  see  corruption,"  are  a  removal  of  it 
once  and  for  ever.  I  have  no  right  to  speak  again  of  an  un- 
visited,  trackless  region  beyond  the  grave ;  I  have  no  right  to 
people  that  region  with  forms  of  my  fancy.  Elysium  and 
Stygian  pools  have  vanished ;  I  have  no  right  to  call  them  in- 
to existence  again.  I  have  no  right  to  accept  the  darkness 
which  haunted  the  minds  of  patriarchs  and  prophets,  and  in 
which  they  believed  it  was  a  sin  to  dwell,  as  if  it  were  intended 
for  us. 

"  But  we  mean  by  Hades,  a  place  of  Spirits ;  do  not  you 
believe  in  that?"  Certainly,  I  believe  in  a  place  where  Spirits 
dwell.  This  earth  is  such  a  place ;  wre,  who  dwell  in  it,  are 
spirits.  There  may  be  a  multitude  more  dwelling  in  it,  who 
have  cast  off  their  conditions  of  mortality,  or  wTho  have  never 
been  subject  to  such  conditions;  I  do  not  know;  there  is  no- 
thing to  oppose  such  a  belief — much,  perhaps,  to  encourage  it. 
As  the  butterfly  in  its  free  flight  may  drop  upon  the  leaf  or 
flower,  and  taste  its  sweets,  on  which  it  fed  as  a  caterpillar,  or 
in  which  it  lay  wrapped  as  a  chrysalis,  so  those  who  could 
just  see  the  glories  of  the  earth  through  its  decay,  and  were 
sometimes  so  entranced  by  them  as  to  forget  their  own  great- 


138  TIIE  SPIRITS  IN  riUSON. 

ness  and  their  Father's  house,  may  now  enter  fully  and  safely 
into  the  beauty  which  overpowered  them,  and  make  it  the 
occasion  for  thanksgiving,  or  may  be  instruments  in  leading 
us  to  an  apprehension  of  it.  There  may  be  many  more  plat 
for  Spirits  in  those  innumerable  worlds  which  #ie  Astronomer 
is  discovering  to  us,  and  which  we  shall  delight  in  and  wonder 
at  the  more,  as  we  become  more  convinced  that  they  are  God's 
worlds,  and  that  not  one  of  them  can  have  been  made  without 
Him  who  is  the  Light  of  men.  The  question  is,  whether, 
above  and  beyond  all  these,  I  must  invent  a  place  which  my 
senses  do  not  tell  me  of,  which  Science  does  not  open  to  me — 
not  for  spirits,  but  for  shadows  ;  and  must  use  the  language  of 
Scripture  which,  apparently,  is  meant  to  deliver  me  from  such 
a  dreary  necessity,  as  the  excuse  for  it. 

"But  Christ  went  and  preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison."  I 
rejoice  to  believe  it.  I  do  not,  indeed,  know,  more  than 
Augustine  did,  to  what  age  or  place  that  preaching  is  to  be 
referred ;  I  may  think  with  him,  that  the  words  of  St.  Peter, 
literally  taken,  point  more  to  the  time  of  Xoali  than  to  a  later 
time.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  I  thank  God  that  Christendom, 
even  in  some  of  those  traditions  wherein  there  has  been  most 
of  vagueness  and  fancy,  has  borne  witness  to  the  fact  that 
Christ  is  the  Lord  of  all  spirits,  who  have  lived  in  all  tin 
and  that  He  is  the  great  deliverer  of  spirits.  I  thank  G 
that  men  have  been  sure  that  there  was  a  justification  for  that 
faith  in  Scripture,  whether  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  particular 
texts  to  which  they  appealed,  or  not.  But  how  that  preach- 
ing to  spirits  in  prison  warrants  me  in  building  a  prison  for 
them,  which,  according  to  no  laws  that  the  Scripture  teaches 
us  about  spirits,  could  hold  them, — a  place  for  the  disembo- 
died,— 1  have  yet  to  be  informed. 

"  But,  your  language,  pushed  to  its  consequences,  might 
prove  that  there  is  no  Heaven  and  no  Hell."  Forgive  me — 
that  is  the  very  consequence  which  I  dread  from  the  perplex- 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL.  139 

ity  into  which  you  have  led  us.  I  believe  that  Christ  came 
into  the  world  expressly  to  reveal  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  and 
to  bring  us  into  it.  He  and  His  Apostles  speak  of  it  as  the 
kingdom  of  righteousness,  peace,  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
They  present  Righteousness,  Love,  Truth,  to  us  as  substantial 
realities,  as  the  Nature  of  the  Living  and  Eternal  God;  mani- 
fested in  the  Only-begotten  Son;  inherited  by  all  who  claim 
to  be  made  in  His  image.  And  since  they  reveal  Heaven  to 
us,  they  of  necessity  make  known  Hell  also.  The  want  of 
Righteousness,  Truth,  Love,  the  state  which  is  contrary  to 
these/  is  and  must  be  Hell. 

"Mystical !  mystical !  States,  not  places  !  So  we  expected." 
A  danger  to  be  feared  ;  and  one  to  be  carefully  avoided.  I 
have  tried  to  avoid  it,  by  saying  that  I  know  of  no  place  for 
disembodied  spirits.  I  cannot  understand  how  men  realise  a 
state  except  in  some  place.  I  do  not  try  to  understand  it.  I  find 
some  spirits  in  different  places  of  this  earth  very  miserable, 
and  others  in  a  certain  degree  of  blessedness.  I  do  not  find 
that  the  place  in  which  they  are,  makes  the  difference.  The 
most  fertile  and  beautiful  may  be  the  most  accursed  ;  the  nat- 
urally sterile  may  be  more  desirable.  I  should  conclude  from 
these  observations,  if  I  had  nothing  else  to  guide  me,  that  the 
moral  and  spiritual  condition  of  the  inhabitants  is  the  means 
of  making  a  heaven  or  a  hell  of  this  earth.  Scripture  sustains 
this  conclusion.  All  it  tells  me  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven, 
shows  me  that  man  must  anywhere  be  blessed,  if  he  has  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  is  living  as  His  willing  subject;  every- 
where accursed,  if  he  is  ignorant  of  God  and  at  war  with  Him. 
This,  I  have  a  right  to  say,  /  know.  And  if  I  believe  God's 
revelation  of  His  Son,  I  may  know  a  little  more.  I  may  be 
sure  that  death, — as  Butler  maintains  from  analogy, — does  not 
change  the  substance  of  the  human  creature,  or  any  of  its 
powers  or  moral  conditions,  but  only  removes  that  which  had 
crushed  its  substance,  checked  the  exercise  of  its  powers,  kepi 


140  I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION. 

its  moral  conditions  out  of  sight.  I  may  conclude,  even  if 
Christ  did  not  tell  me  so  expressly  in  all  His  parables,  that  the 
laws  of  God's  kingdom  in  its  different  regions  are  not  different; 
that  one  must  explain  the  other ;  that  everywhere  to  know  God, 
and  work  for  God  and  with  God,  to  help  His  creatures,  to  cry 
and  labor  lor  the  extirpation  of-evil,  must  be  the  good  of  spirits 
formed  in  God's  image ;  that  everywhere  sympathy,  fellow- 
ship, affection,  must  be  the  condition  of  right  human  existence  ; 
selfishness,  its  plague  and  contradiction.     I  cannot  believe  the 

>d  anywhere,  in  any  creatures,  to  have  reached  its  climax, 
because  the  Scriptures  and  reason  teach  me  that  there  must 
be  a  perpetual  growth  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  in  the 
power  of  serving  him.  And  as  long  as  there  is  any  evil  in  the 
universe,  I  must  suppose,  seeing  that  God  and  His  Son  desire 
its  overthrow,  that  good  spirits,  also  desire  its  overthrow. 
Further  than  this  I  dare  not  go.  '  And  this,  it  seems  to  me, 
should  be  enough  to  make  our  zeal  in  proclaiming  the  Gos- 
pel of  men's  deliverance  from  evil,  and  death,  and  hell,  very 
strong  and  vehement,  and  in  exhorting  our  brethren  not  to 
reject  so  great  a  salvation  ;  seeing  that  left  to  ourselves  with- 
out a  Redeemer  and  a  Father,  there  must  be  a  continual 
descent  into  a  lower  depth.  It  cannot  signify  much  to  me,  or 
any  man,  whether  1  call  that  depth  Hades  or  Gehenna.  To 
me  the  Hades  becomes  a  Gehenna,  because  my  own  self  be- 
comes one,  if  I  cannot  be  raised  out  of  myself,  and  brought 
into  sympathy  with  God's  order,  and  God's  love. 

4.   When  Jesus   said    to  Martha,  "  Thy  brother  shall  rise 

in"  she,  taught  in  the  popular  school  of  the  time,  answered, 
"  I  know  that  he  shall  rise  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day?'1 

sus  answered"  says  St.  John,  "  I  am  the  Resurrection  a?ul 
the  Life;  he  that  bdieveth  in  me,  though  he  ivere  dead,  yet  shall 
lie  live.  And  whosoever  liveth  and  bclieveth  in  me  shall  never 
die."  It  seems  to  me  sometimes,  in  low7  and  desponding  moods, 
that  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  Church,  we 


THE  RESURRECTION  ACCORDING  TO  UNITARIANS.      141 

have  got  back  to  Martha's  point  of  view, — that  we  believe 
just  what  the  Pharisees  had  instructed  her  to  believe  ; — that 
the  glorious  mystery  implied  in  the  words  by  which  our  Lord 
raised  her  out  of  that  condition  of  mind,  and  in  the  act  which 
confirmed  them,  has  perished  out  of  the  circle  of  our  convic- 
tions. But  I  am  sure  this  is  not  so,  and  that  it  only  seems  to 
be  so,  because  we  judge  of  the  inward  belief  of  human  beings, 
— of  that  deep  and  secret  wisdom  which  they  receive  from 
above, — by  the  hard  and  formal  propositions  which  they 
have  caught  from  us,  and  have  probably  misunderstood.  Tins 
distinction, — which  I  find  it  more  and  more  necessary  to  keep 
in  mind  respecting  ourselves,  that  I  may  feel  our  sins,  and 
God's  mercy, — is  also  a  great  comfort  in  thinking  of  Unitarians. 
To  me,  nothing  sounds  harder  and  colder  than  their  mode  of 
talking  about  Christ's  Resurrection.  In  old  times  they  clung 
to  the  belief  with  great  tenacity ;  it  was  the  main  article  of  their 
faith.  The  Resurrection,  they  said,  proved  the  truth  of  immor- 
tality, which  philosophers  had  always  disputed.  It  proved 
also  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion.  Apparently  the  trans- 
lation of  the  first  statement  is,  that  a  stupendous  violation  of 
all  the  laws  and  principles  of  the  universe  was  divinely  ordained, 
to  convince  men  of  a  truth  which  they  had  never  been  able  to 
forget;  which  had  haunted  them,  and  given  birth  to  the  most 
frightful  superstitions;  from  which  the  most  modern  wisdom 
hopes  that  we  may  at  last  be  rescued.  As  to  the  second  rea- 
son, a  man  is  compelled  to  ask,  "  And  what  is  the  religion 
which  this  stupendous  anomaly  is  to  establish  ?"  for  it  cannot 
itself  be  the  religion ;  it  is  described  as  a  means  to  an  end ;  a 
mere  mode  of  demonstration.  Is  it  to  show  that  certain  great 
moral  maxims  are  sound  and  true,  which  would  commend 
themselves  to  the  conscience  without  any  such  evidence,  and 
which  cannot  be  obeyed  at  all  the  more,  if  it  were  multiplied 
a  thousandfold  ?  Both  these  difficulties  would  seem  to  have 
been  increased  greatly,  by  the  perseverance  with  which  Priest- 


142  Priestley's  faith, 

ley  and  the  earlier  Unitarians  maintained  the  simplest  mate- 
rialism, denying  the  existence  of  a  soul,  and  holding  that  the 
body  slept  till  some  distant  Resurrection-day.  And  yet  I  am 
sure  that  the  faith  of  these  Unitarians  in  the  Resurrection  was 
often  most  strong,  most  energetic.  It  bore  them  through  many 
outward  difficulties,  made  them  ready  to  encounter  popular 
indignation  and  contumely,  saved  them  from  the  tempta- 
tion,— which  must  have  been  often  great,  as  the  correspon- 
dence between  Gibbon  and  Priestley  shows, — to  cast  in  their 
lot  with  the  accomplished  infidels,  who  respected  them  for 
their  knowledge  of  physics,  and  despised  them  for  their  want 
of  boldness  in  not  wholly  repudiating  the  supernatural.  A 
belief  which  could  bear  these  fruits,  I  at  least  feel  that  I  have 
no  right  to  speak  slightingly  of;  nor  do  I  discover  that  I  have 
what  German  doctors  call  "  a  theological  interest"  in  under- 
valuing it.  I  rather  think,  that  if  I  were  thoroughly  rooted  in 
the  principles  which  I  have  endeavored  to  assert  in  this  and 
the  foregoing  Essays,  I  should  give  thanks  for  thee  is  and 

witnesses  that  Christ  is  with  those  who  seem  to  speak  most 
slightingly  of  Him,  testifying  to  them  that  He  is  risen  indeed, 
and  that  they  have  a  life  in  Him  which  no  speculations  or 
denials  of  theirs  have  been  able  to  rob  them  of,  even  as  we 
have  a  life  in  Him,  which  our  sins  often  hinder  us  from  acknow- 
ledging, but  cannot  quench.  Since,  however,  it  is  evident  that 
the  younger  Unitarians  cannot  retain  the  ground  which  their 
fathers  held;  since  they  must  either  give  up  all  belief  in  the 
fact  of  the  Resurrection,  or  find  some  divine  basis  for  it,  which 
was  not  perceived  by  them, — I  do  very  earnestly  ask  them  to 
reflect  upon  the  deeds  and  words  on  which  I  have  been  try- 
ing to  comment,  and  not  to  let  the  theories  of  my  brethren,  or 
mine,  hinder  them  from  uniting  with  us  in  a  confession  which 
-ted  before  all  these  theories,  and  will  live  when  they  have 
perished. 


ESSAY   IX. 


ON  JUSTIFICATION  BY  FAITH. 


Whenever,  such  broad  statements  are  put  forward  as 
those  which  I  have  endeavored  to  defend  in  my  last  four  Es- 
says,— that  Christ  is  the  Lord  of  man  ;  that  He  took  the  nature 
of  man  ;  that  He  reconciled  man  and  God  by  the  sacrifice  of 
Himself;  that  He  rose  again  as  the  Redeemer  of  man,  from 
death,  the  grave,  and  hell, — there  arises  in  our  minds  a  fear 
which  is  both  natural  and  righteous.  Does  not  such  language 
overlook  the  notorious  fact,  that  good  and  evil  men  are  mixed 
together  in  this  world, — that  the  evil  far  outnumber  the  good  ? 
Does  it  not  break  down  moral  distinctions,  which  it  is  our  first 
duty  to  preserve  ?  Does  it  not  practically  deny  that  God  ap- 
proves the  just  and  condemns  the  wicked? 

No  one  should  be  weary  of  answering  these  objections,  or 
should  complain  because  they  rise  up  again  and  again  after  he 
fancies  that  he  has  disposed  of  them.  Though  the  whole  pur- 
pose of  his  argument  may  have  been  to  show  how  essentially 
and  eternally  opposed  Good  and  Evil  are,  how  impossible 
it  is  that  they  ever  can  blend  together;  what  according  to 

(143) 


144      HOW  TO  SEPARATE  THE  GOOD  AND  BAD. 

God's  revelation  of  Himself,  He  has  done  and  is  doing  to  sepa- 
rate them, — he  must  not  be  the  least  grieved  if  he  should  be 
met  at  last  with  the  observation,  "  "What  you  talk  about  the 
redemption  of  mankind,  means  nothing  after  all.     It  is  a  mere 
dogma  or  technicality,  with  which  those  who  are  not  in  con- 
tact with  the  actual  world  may  amuse  themselves.      We  who 
are,  know  that,  instead  of  identifying  ourselves  with  the  mass  of 
the  creatures  around  us,  we  must  learn  how  we  may  become 
most  entirely  unlike  them,  or  we  never  shall  be  like  Him  who 
you   say  is  perfectly  Good   and  True."     Such  words,  even 
though  they  may  be  uttered  in  a  very   contemptuous   tone, 
would  not  excite  any  displeasure  in  us,  if  our  own  minds  were 
in  a  right  and  healthy  state.       We  should  welcome  them    is 
signs  that  the  speaker  had  an  honest  and  deep  conviction  which 
he  will  not  part  with,  and  which  must  be  thoroughly  satisfied 
before  he  takes  in  any  other.     And  it  is  the  less  excusable  to 
manifest  any  irritation  when  we  are  the  subjects  of  this  kind 
of  animadversion,  because  we  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
this  difficulty,  in  one  shape  or  other,  has  given  occupation  to 
every  age  of  the  Christian  Church  ;  that  it  has  been  no  sooner 
overcome  by  a  mighty  effort  in  one  direction,  than  it  has  reap- 
peared in  another ;  that  it  has,  therefore,   all   the  tokens  of 
being  a  practical  human  difficulty,  and  one  of  so  grave  a  kind, 
that  people  have  been  compelled  to  seek  an  explanation  of  it, 
and  that  when  they  have  sought,  they  have  found.     The  past 
experiences  of  the  world,  in  this  and  in  all  cases,  are  not  war- 
rants for  discouragement ;  if  we  use  them  faithfully  they  are 
full  of  hope. 

1.  The  Church,  after  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  was  no 
longer  contending  chiefly  with  Jewish  sects,  which  claimed  to 
be  portions  of  the  one  divine  nation.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  a 
huge  empire  which  hated  it,  and  with  the  principles  of  which 
it  was  at  war.  Its  members  must  carefully  distinguish  them- 
selves from  those  among  whom  they  dwelt,  with  whom  they 


POST-BAPTISMAL  SIN.  145 

trafficked,  who  were  under  the  same  protection  or  tyranny. 
Baptism  was  the  sign  of  their  fellowship.  Baptism  must  sepa- 
rate the  churchman  from  the  common  earthly  man.  It  could 
not  merely  denote  an  outward  contrast.  The  Aew  dispensa- 
tion had  penetrated  below  the  surface  to  the  roots  of  things. 
Baptism  must  import  the  most  inward  purification,  the  remo- 
val of  that  common  evil  which  all  men  had  inherited  from 
Adam.  "  Then,"  it  was  argued,  "  he  who  wants  this,  is  neces- 
sarily lying  under  that  common  evil  ;  he  can  bs  looked  upon 
only  as  a  natural  creature."  There  were  innumerable  checks 
and  counteractions  to  this  opinion.  It  was  incompatible  with 
the  interest  which  the  more  spiritual  of  the  Fathers  felt  in  the 
inquiries  of  Gentile  philosophers,  as  bearing  upon  all  the 
deepest  mysteries  of  the  Gospel;  it  was  still  more  obviously 
incompatible  with  the  view  which  they  took  of  their  own  inter- 
nal conflicts  before  they  entered  into  the  fold  of  Christ.  But  it 
became  the  formal  recognised  school  maxim,  and  it  could  not 
be  that,  without  having  the  most  direct  influence  upon  prac- 
tice. The  influence  was  felt  more  bitterly  and  painfully  within 
the  Church  than  without  it.  Many  Christians  were  found  to  be 
leading  as  sinful  lives  as  heathens.  It  could  not  be  doubted 
that  their  responsibilities  were  greater,  and  that,  therefore, 
their  sin  must  be  greater.  An  inference  was  speedily  deduced 
from  that  fact.  The  blessings  of  Baptism  were  said  to  be  in- 
finite for  those  who  first  received  it.  Their  sins  were  blotted 
out;  they  were  now  creatures.  But  the  blessings  were  ex- 
hausted in  the  act.  Every  subsequent  step,  in  the  immense 
majority  of  cases,  perhaps  in  every  case,  wTas  a  step  out  of  pu- 
rity into  evil.  The  white  robes  were  soiled ;  the  divine  offer- 
ing for  sin  had  been  spurned  ;  pardon  could  only  be  hoped  for 
by  continual  acts  of  repentance  and  mortification. 

In  this  instance,  as  in  the  other,  the  counteracting  influences 
were  most  numerous.      The  Psalms  were  still  the  great  book 
of  Church  devotion.     They  spoke  of  flying  to  God  as  a  refuge 
7 


146  EFFECT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE. 

from  all  enemies ;  of  sins  being  forgiven  and  iniquities  covered ; 
of  God  not  desiring  sacrifice  and  offerings.  The  Creed  pro- 
claimed belief  in  forgiveness  of  sin,  as  part  of  the  ordinary  and 
necessary  faith  of  a  Christian  man  ;  the  Lord's  Prayer  taught 
him  to  say,  "  Our  Father ;"  the  Eucharist  was  a  continual 
thanksgiving  for  a  sacrifice  offered  and  accepted.  Still  the 
doctrine  of  post-baptismal  sin  had  been  proclaimed ;  the  un- 
derstanding could  not  refute  it ;  the  sin-stricken  conscience 
confirmed  it ;  the  natural  inference  that  it  was  much  safer  to 
defer  baptism  to  the  latest  moment  was  drawn,  and,  as  in  the 
e  of  the  first  Christian  emperor,  reduced  into  practice.  Con- 
stant ue  had  settled  the  debates  of  the  Donatists  and  presided 
at  a  Council  concerning  the  deepest  mysteries  of  the  faith,  be- 
fore he  received  the  rite  of  initiation.  He  availed  himself  of 
the  delay  to  murder  his  son,  and  to  leave  orders  for  the  slaugh- 
ter of  the  most  conspicuous  members  of  his  family. 

If  this  memorable  example  of  the  moral  consequences  of 
the  doctrine  had  been  wanting,  there  was  more  than  enough 
in  the  despair  with  which  it  inspired  numbers  of  those  who 
had  received  the  Sacrament,  in  the  experiments  to  which  that 
despair  drove  them,  in  the  utter  confusion  of  their  thoughts 
respecting  the  character  of  God  and  the  services  which  He  4 
required  of  them,  to  startle  its  most  resolute  champion.  But  it 
continued  to  dwell  in  the  minds  of  good  men,  because  for  them 
it  was,  to  a  great  extent,  inoperative-;  their  love  for  God  and 
His  family,  and  for  the  whole  world,  made  any  opinion  they 
held  a  reason  for  severity  to  themselves,  and  for  tenderness  to 
their  brethren.  They  could  not  see  any  logical  escape  from 
this  one ;  they  conspired  with  bad  men  to  suggest  practices, 
for  curing  outward  sins  or  removing  the  sores  they  left  in  the 
heart,  which  strengthened  and  deepened  it.  And  thus  it 
seemed  as  if  the  great  line  which  separated  the  Church  from 
the  world  was  one  which  could  not  be  wisely  passed ;  for,  by 
the  Church's  confession,  the  majority  of  those  who  were  with- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  AND  SECULAR.  147 

in  it  were  not  better  than  the  rest  of  men,  and  were  exposed 
to  a  more  dreadful  doom. 

But  if  this  line  was  not  deep  enough,  others  might  be 
drawn.  One  class  of  baptized  men  might  be  allowed  to  rest 
contented  with  an  ordinary  secular  life, — to  marry,  rule  the 
household,  and  do  those  works  which  were  considered  godly 
by  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  and  which  St.  Paul  command- 
ed the  ministers,  as  well  as  the  members,  of  the  churches  he 
founded,  to  perform;  others  might  'become  religious, — might 
eschew,  as  far  as  possible,  human  ties  and  obligations,  and  give 
themselves  to  the  service  of  God.  Here  was  another  experi- 
ment for  the  purpose  of  separating  the  righteous  from  the 
unrighteous.  A  church  was  to  be  set  up  within  the  Church.  The 
whole  fellowship  was  not  one  of  saints,  but  it  was  one  which 
might  nurture  saints.  There  were  two  great  counteractions  to 
the  habit  of  mind  which  this  division  indicated.  The  first  lay 
in  the  feeling  of  churchmen  that  they  were  meant  to  rule  the 
world,  and  therefore  must  take  part  in  all  the  most  secular 
affairs  of  it,  whatever  danger  there  was  of  defilement  from  them. 
The  second  arose  from  the  strange  discovery,  that  those  who 
were  felt  and  confessed  to  be  the  truest  saints  in  virtue  of  the 
influence  which  they  exerted,  were  precisely  those  who  broke 
down  the  barriers  which  had  been  raised  between  them  and 
ordinary  people.  They  ate  and  drank  with  publicans  and  sin- 
ners. They  were  especially  witnesses  to  the  people  of  a  com- 
mon Friend  and  Redeemer,  wTho  cared  for  all.  But  these  exist- 
ing agencies  enable  us  to  understand  better  the  effect  of  the 
belief  itself  on  the  morality  of  the  Church.  Its  dealings  with 
the  ordinary  business  of  the  world  took  a  particularly  cunning, 
sordid,  debasing  form,  because  that  ordinary  business  was 
supposed  to  be  destined  only  for  a  lower  Christian  caste ;  the 
very  sympathies  which  were  most  truly  human  and  divine 
looked  artificial  because,  according  to  the  theory,  they  were  por- 
tions  of  the  saintly  ideal,  and  the  means  by  wrhich  it  was 


148  EFFECTS  OF  THE  DIVISION. 

exhibited  to  men.  And  the  lowering  effect  of  the  scheme 
upon  those  who  gathered  from  it  that  their  calling  was  to 
shuffle  through  existence  as  they  could,  and  only  to  expect 
that  divine  helpers  would  be  found  waiting  for  them  at  the 
close  of  it,  no  words  can  describe. 

2.  At  last  there  came  a  clear  and  effectual  testimony  against 
these  notions,  and  the  practices  to  which  they  had  given  birth. 
And  it  took  this  form  : — It  said,  "  You  are  seeking  to  make 
yourselves  just  orrighteous  before  God.  You  cannot  do  it. 
There  is  but  one  'Righteousness,  that  which  is  in  Christ,  for  the 
woret  and  the  best  of  us.  You  are  seeking  to  deliver  your- 
selves by  this  and  that  experiment  from  the  sense  of  the  evils 
you  have  committed.  You  cannot  do  it.  Faith  in  the  Son  of 
God  is  the  only  deliverance  for  the  conscience  of  any  man. 
You  are  not  free  till  you  trust  Him;  till  you  are  free,  you  can- 
not do  the  works  of  a  freeman,  but  only  those  of  a  slave." 
The  Reformers  who  bore  this  protest  were  obliged  to  carry  it 
still  further  back.  They  were  forced  to  Bay,  as  St.  Paul  had 
said  before  them,  "  God  Himself  is  the  justifier.  He  has  given 
Christ  for  our  sins,  and  has  raised  Him  again  for  our  justifica- 
tion. He  calls  you,  each  of  you,  to  know  that  Just  One,  in 
whom  you  are  accepted." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  this  was  levelling  language ; 
it  was  breaking  down,  to  all  appearance,  the  barriers  between 
the  righteous  and  the  wicked,  barriers  which  centuries  had 
been  at  work  to  build  up.  Nay,  it  seemed  as  if  this  Ian., 
carried  one  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Church  :  as  if  any  man 
might  claim  the  righteousness  of  Christ, — might  have  his  con- 
science set  free  from  sin, — might  believe  that  God  had  justified 
him.  The  Romanists  charged  both  these  consequences  of  their 
doctrine  upon  their  opponents.  u  By  preaching  faith  without 
the  deeds  of  the  law,"  they  said,  "  you  efface  moral  distinc- 
tions; by  speaking  so  generally  as  you  do  of  Christ's  death 
and  resurrection,  you  seem  to  take  away  the  privileges  of  the 


PROTEST  AGAINST  IT,  149 

baptized  man."  The  Keformers  retaliated.  "  You,"  they 
said,  "  are  guilty  of  the  sin  you  impute  to  us.  You  have  over- 
thrown all  difference  between  the  pure  and  the  impure;  you 
have  done  so  inevitably,  because  you  have  destroyed  all  differ- 
ence between  those  who  believe  and  those  whodo  not  believe." 
That  being  the  danger  which  they  dreaded  most,  they  set  them- 
selves to  consider  how  they  might  most  successfully  avoid  it. 
The  result  was  a  new  set  of  experiments  to  separate  the  Church 
from  the  world,  and  then  to  create  a  Church  within  the  Church. 
Faith  justifies,  but  it  must  be  ascertained  who  have  faith. 
Christ's  is  the  only  righteousness ;  but  to  whom  is  that  right- 
eousness imputed  ?  God  calls  men  to  the  knowledge  of  His 
Son  ;  but  if  He  calls,  does  He  not  also  reject  ? 

It  seemed  to  Protestant  divines  and  laymen  just  as 
necessary  to  invent  plans  for  dividing  the  faithful  from  the 
unbelieving, — those  who  belonged  to  Christ  from  those  who 
had  no  relation  to  Him, — the  elect  from  the  reprobate, — as  it 
had  ever  seemed  necessary  to  the  Eomanist  to  divide  heathens 
from  baptized  men,  ecclesiastics  from  the  laity,  the  saint  from 
the  ordinarv  Christian.  And  I  think  it  must  be  owned,  that 
the  effects  in  each  case  have  been  similar.  The  great  moral 
distinctions,  wThich  God's  law  proclaims,  and  which  the  con- 
science of  man  affirms,  have  not  been  deepened  but  obliter- 
ated ;  fictitious  maxims  and  standards  have  been  introduced 
which  are  as  unfavorable  to  the  common  honesty  of  daily  life, 
as  they  are  to  any  higher  righteousness  which  we  should  seek 
as  citizens  of  God's  kingdom,  as  creatures  formed  in  His  image. 
It  seems  as  if  faith  signified  a  persuasion  that  God  will  not 
punish  us  hereafter  for  the  sins  we  have  committed  here,  because 
we  have  that  persuasion ;  as  if  some  men  were  accounted 
righteous,  for  Christ's  sake,  by  a  mere  deception,  it  not  being 
the  fact  that  they  are  righteous;  as  if  God  pleased  of  mere 
arbitrariness  that  certain  men  should  escape  His  wrath,  and 
that  certain  men  should  endure  the  full  measure  of  it.     I  find 


150  OUR  DUTY. 

it  hard  even  to  state  these  propositions,  without  being  guilty 
of  a  kind  of  profaneness,  and  a  kind  of  uncharitableness,  so 
shocking  do  they  sound  when  they  are  put  into  plain  words,  and 
so  wrong  is  it  to  suppose  that  any  man  holds  them  in  the  sense 
which  those  words  seem  to  convey.  But  it  is  not  wrong, — it 
is  a  great  duty, — to  set  them  out  broadly  and  nakedly,  that 
those  w7ho  have  dallied  with  thoughts  which  are  capable  of 
such  a  construction  may  shudder,  and  may  ask  themselves 
whether  this,  or  anything  like  this,  is  their  meaning ;  or,  if 
not,  what  they  do  mean.  Provided  always,  that  we  admit,  in 
this  instance,  as  in  that  of  the  Romanists,  what  enormous  influ- 
ences there  are  at  work  to  neutralize  these  notions  and  state 
ments ;  even  to  change  them  into  their  direct  opposites  ;  how 
strong  and  earnest  their  desire  is  for  freedom  from  sin,  and 
their  willingness  to  bear  any  punishment  rather  than  be  slaves 
of  sin,  who  seem  as  if  they  thought  their  faith  was  merely  to 
procure  them  an  exemption  from  penalties  which  others  must 
suffer  ;  how  serious  their  zeal  for  God's  truth,  who  seem,  by 
their  words,  as  if  they  could  bear  to  suspect  Him  of  a  fiction  ; 
how  thoroughly  in  their  hearts  they  acknowledge  God  to  be 
without  partiality,  and  to  be  altogether  just,  whose  phrases 
ascribe  to  Him  a  principle  of  conduct  upon  which  they  would 
themselves  be  ashamed  to  act.  I  repeat  what  I  said  before  ; 
the  more  frankly  and  thankfully  we  make  these  admissions, 
the  more  we  are  bound  to  labor,  that  the  faith  which  is  in  the 
hearts  of  men  may  not  be  extinguished  in  them  and  utterly 
misrepresented  to  their  children,  by  the  perilous  unbelief  which 
they  allow  to  mingle  with  it.  For  the  sake  of  the  precious 
good,  wre  must  wrestle  with  its  counterfeit.  And  this,  I  believe, 
we  can  only  do  by  resolving  once  for  all,  that  since  every 
attempt  which  has  been  hitherto  made  to  draw  lines  and  limit- 
ations about  the  Gospel  of  God,  for  the  purpose  of  dividing 
the  righteous  from  the  wicked,  has  tended  to  confound  them, 
— to  put  evil  for  good,  and  good  for  evil, — we  will  abstain  in 


THE  JUSTIFICATION  OF  CHRIST.  151 

future  from  all  such  attempts,  and  will  ask  seriously  whether 
God  has  not  himself  established  eternal  distinctions,  which 
become  clear  to  us  when,  and  only  when,  we  are  content  to  be 
the  heralds  of  his  free  and  universal  love.  I  think  it  may  be 
shown,  not  only  that  these  distinctions  are  most  recognised 
when  we  look  upon  all  men  as  interested  in  Christ's  Death  and 
Resurrection,  but  that  we  cannot  do  justice  to  the  zeal  of 
Romanists  for  Baptism,  of  Protestants  for  Faith,  that  we  can- 
not reconcile  the  one  with  the  other,  paying  the  highest  honor 
to  each,  till  we  claim  the  wider  ground  from  which  they  are 
both  inclined  to  drive  us.  I  think  that  wTe  shall  find  that  the 
Scriptures  interpreted  simply,  interpreted  especially  in  connex- 
ion with  the  fact  of  the  Resurrection  which  has  lately  occupied 
us,  explain  and  vindicate  each  of  these  apparently  inconsistent 
tenets,  but  explain  and  vindicate  them  by  taking  from  each  its 
exclusive  and  inhuman,  and  with  that,  its  fictitious  and  immoral, 
character. 

3.  If  we  start  from  the  point  at  which  we  arrived  in  the  last 
Essay,  and  believe  that  the  Christ,  the  King  of  man's  spirit, 
having  taken  the  flesh  of  man,  willingly  endured  the  death  of 
which  that  flesh  is  heir,  and  that  His  Father,  by  raising  Him 
from  the  dead,  declared  that  death  and  the  grave  and  hell 
could  not  hold  Him,  because  He  was  His  righteous  and  well- 
beloved  Son,  we  have  that  first  and  highest  idea  of  Justification 
which  St.  Paul  unfolds  to  us.  God  justifies  the  Man  who 
perfectly  trusted  in  Him ;  declares  Him  to  have  the  only 
righteousness  which  He  had  ever  claimed, — the  only  one  which 
would  not  have  been  a  sin  and  a  fall  for  Him  to  claim, — the 
righteousness  of  His  Father, — the  righteousness  which  was 
His  so  long  as  He  would  have  none  of  his  own,  so  long  as  He 
was  content  to  give  up  Himself.  "  He  was  put  to  death  in  the 
flesh,  He  was  justified  in  the  Spirit  /"  this  is  the  Apostle's 
language ;  this  is  his  clear,  noble,  satisfactory  distinction, 
which  is   re-asserted  in  various  forms  throughout  the    New 


152  JUSTIFICATION  OF  MEN. 

Testament.  But  St.  Paul  takes  it  for  granted,  that  this  justi- 
fication of  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man  was  his  own 
justification, — his  own,  not  because  he  was  Saul  of  Tarsus,  not 
because  he  was  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  but  because  he  was 
a  man.  All  his  zeal  as  an  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  all  his 
arguments  against  his  own  countrymen,  have  this  ground  and 
no  other;  the  one  would  have  worn  out  from  contempt  and 
persecution,  the  other  would  have  fallen  utterly  to  pieces,  if 
he  had  not  been  assured  that  Christ's  resurrection  declared 
Him  to  be  the  Son  of  man,  the  Head  of  man,  and  therefore, 
that  His  justification  was  the  justification  of  each  man.  He 
had  not  arrived  at  this  discovery  without  tremendous  personal 
struggles.  He  had  felt  far  more  deeply  than  Job  did,  how 
much  he  was  at  war  with  the  law  of  his  being,  the  law  which  he 
was  created  to  obey  ;  he  had  felt  far  more  deeply  than  Job, 
that  there  was  a  righteousness  near  him,  and  in  him,  in  which 
his  inner  mind  delighted.  He  had  been  sure  that  there  must  be 
a  Redeemer   to  the  righteousness  the  victory  over  the 

evil ;   to  deliver  him  out  of  the  power  to  which  he  was  sold,  to 

tisfy  the  spirit  in  him  which  longed  for  good.  He  had 
thanked  God  through  Jesus  Christ  his  Lord.  And  now  he  felt 
that  he  was  a  righteous  man  ;  that  he  had  the  only  righteous- 
ness which  a  man  could  have, — the  righteousness  of  God, — 
the  righteousness  which  is  upon  faith, — the  righteousne- 
which  is  not  for  Jew  more  than  for  Gentile, — which  is  for  all 
alike. 

How  impossible,  then,  was  it  for  him  to  receive  Baptism  as 
if  it  were  merely  the  outward  badge  of  a  profession,  a  sign 
which  separated  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes  from  other  Jews,  or 
other  men!  If  it  marked  him  out  as  a  Christian,  that  w; 
because  it  denoted  that  he  would  no  more  be  the  member  of 
any  sect,  of  any  partial  society  whatever, — that  he  was  claim- 
ing his  relation  to  the  Son  of  God,  the  Head  of  the  whole 
human  race.     It  must  import  his  belief  that  this  Son  of  God, 


MEANING  OF  BAPTISM.  153 

and  not  Adam,  was  the  true  root  of  Humanity;    that  from 
Him,  and  not  from  any  ancestor,  each  man  derived  his  life.    It 
must  import  his  acknowledgment,  that  in  himself,  in  his  flesh, 
dwelt  no  good  thing;  but  that  he  was  not  obliged  or  intended 
to  live  as  a  creature  of  flesh,  as  a  separate  self-seeking  being; 
that  it  was  utterly  contrary  to  God's  order  that  he  should. 
But  if  Baptism  imported  so  much,  it  must  import  more.    Paul 
had  not  devised  it,  or  invented  it.     An  act  which  expressed 
the  giving  up  of  himself,  could  not  be  one  which  only  signified 
that  he  had  made  a  choice  between  two  religions,  abandoning 
one,  adopting  another.    He  had  done  nothing  of  the  kind.    He 
had  not  abandoned  his  Jewish  faith;  he  was  holding  it  fast, 
maintaining  that  it  had  been  proved  to  be  true  throughout. 
He  was  not  adopting  a  Christian  religion.     He  was  simply 
submitting  himself  to  a  Son  of  David  as  being  also  the  Son  of 
God.     Baptism,  then,  he  accepted  as  the  ordinance  of  God  for 
men,  as  His  declaration  of  that  which  is  true  concerning  men, 
of  the  actual  relation  in  which  men  stand  to  Him.     If  He  had 
justified  His  Son,  by  raising  Him  from  the  dead, — if,  in  that 
act,  He  had  justified  the  race  for  which  Christ  had  died, — then 
it  was  lawful  to  tell  men  that  they  were  justified  before  God, 
that  they  were  sons  of  God  in  the  only-begotten  Son  ;  it  was 
lawful  to  tell  them  that  the  act  which,  by  Christ's  command, 
accompanied  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  all  nations,  signi- 
fied this,  and  nothing  less  than  this.     If  Christ  was  not  the 
actual  Mediator  between  God  and  man, — if  His  resurrection 
did  not  declare  that  God  confessed  Him  in  that  character,  and 
thereby  confessed  men  to  be  righteous  in  Him, — Baptism  was 
a  nullity,  a  mere  delusion ;  it  ought  not  to  be  associated  with 
the  proclamation  of  facts  so  stupendous;  a  message  professing 
to  come  from   God,  who  is  a  spirit,  and  concerning  all  the 
mysteries  of  man's  spiritual  life,  should  not  be  linked  to  a  poor 
petty  rite  which  denoted  merely  his  external  position. 

By  declaring  in  plain  words,  that  they  who  were  baptized 

7# 


154  TRUST  ALWAYS  RIGHT. 

into  Christ  were  baptized  into  His  death,  that  they  put  on 
Christ,  that  they  were  to  count  themselves  dead  indeed  to  sin, 
but  alive  unto  God,  risen  with  Christ,  St.  Paul  pointed  out  the 
ever-effectual  protection  against  the  error  into  which  the  Church 
afterwards  fell ;  the  one  great  divine  distinction  for  which  it 
substituted  its  awkward  and  mischievous  theories  and  prac- 
tices. So  long  as  Baptism  was  really  felt  to  denote  the  true 
and  eternal  law  of  man's  relation  to  God,  so  long  it  could  give 
no  excuse  for  those  notions  respecting  post-baptismal  sin,  out 
of  which  such  enormous  and  complicated  evils  were  developed. 
How  could  those  who  believed  that  God  had  declared  His 
Son  to  be  the  root  of  righteousness  for  every  man, — that  they 
were  baptized  into  Him.  adopted  to  be  sons  of  God  in  Hiin, — 
teach  any  human  creature  that  he  had  had  a  certain  righteous- 

38,  justification,  freedom  from  evil,  for  a  moment,  but  that 
when  he  had  yielded  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  or  the  power  of 
the  Evil  Spirit,  these  blessings  were  his  no  longer?  Of  course 
it  would  be  so,  if  his  righteousness  were  his  own  property,  if 
it  could  ever  become  his  own  property.  But  if  what  baptism 
proclaimed  was  precisely,  that  it  never  could,  that  the  notion 
of  a  self-righteousness  is  false  in  principle,  the  greatest  of  all 
contradictions,  then  it  must  be  the  right  and  duty  of  men  at 
all  times  to  turn  to  Him  in  whom  they  are  created,  redeemed, 
justified  ;  their  trust  was  either  lawful  at  no  time,  or  it  was 
lawful  at  every  time ;  on  no  principle,  save  that  of  continual 
trust  in  the  Lord  of  his  spirit,  could  a  man  assert  the  privilege 
and  glory  of  his  baptism,  and  rise  above  his  enemies.  What- 
ever doctrine  robbed  him  of  that  trust,  or  led  him  to  build  his 
life  and  conduct  upon  distrust,  was  earthly,  sensual,  devilish. 

The  Reformers,  I  conceive,  were  riot  denying  the  strongest 
assertions  of  St.  Paul  respecting  baptism,  when  they  used  this 
language,  and  called  on  all  men  to  believe  in  the  Son  of  God 
for  their  justification.  In  fact,  they  appealed  to  these  assertions 
continually ;  they  were  their  most  effectual  weapons.     Nor,  I 


PROTESTANT  SINS.  155 

conceive,  did  they  pervert  or  weaken  these  words,  when  they 
said  that  the  Church  was  falling  into  the  condition  of  a  mere 
world,  and  that  faithful  men  must  be  the  instruments  of  raising- 
it  out  of  that  condition.  Faith,  they  said, — and  the  conscience 
of  men  confirmed  their  words, — is  the  ground  of  right  hearty 
action ;  unbelief  makes  it  impossible. 

"  Yes,"  replies  the  Eomanist,  u  and  your  Protestant  mode 
of  reforming  the  universal  Church  was  to  split  it  into  a  thou- 
sand sects ;  your  Protestant  way  of  asserting  the  preciousness 
of  faith  was,  to  leave  us  nothing  in  which  we  should  believe." 
The  mockery  is  severe,  and  it  is  deserved.  Sectarianism  has 
been  the  effect  of  the  schemes  which  Protestants  have  adopted 
for  the  purpose  of  defining  who  have  a  right  to  be  members  of 
Christ's  Church,  and  who  have  not;  the  loss  of  a  distinct  and 
common  object  of  faith  has  been  the  effect  of  the  schemes 
which  Protestants  have  adopted  to  ascertain  who  have  and 
who  have  not  the  gift  of  faith,  or  the  right  to  believe.  They 
have  sought  to  be  wiser  than  God,  and  God  has  confounded 
their  vanity.  He  has  laid  one  foundation  for  a  Universal 
Church,  and  they  thought  they  might  make  foundations  for 
themselves.  He  has  established  the  great  distinctions,  that 
there  is  in  every  man  a  spirit  which  seeks  righteousness,  and  a 
flesh  which  stoops  to  evil ;  that  there  is  with  every  man  the 
Christ,  who  would  quicken  his  spirit,  and  deliver  his  soul  and 
body  out  of  death ;  and  with  every  man  an  evil  power,  who 
tempts  him  to  become  the  slave  of  his  flesh,  and  so  to  destroy 
his  soul  and  body ;  that  in  Christ,  the  true  Lord  of  their  spirit, 
men  are  claimed  as  sons  of  God,  and  that  they,  by  distrusting 
Him,  and  yielding  to  the  devil,  become  utterly  unlike  Him, 
forming  themselves  in  the  image  of  the  father  whom  they  have 
chosen.  And  we,  for  these  great  practical  divine  contrasts, 
which  will  be  brought  out  in  the  clear  light  of  God's  judgment- 
day,  and  which  nothing  in  earth  or  hell  or  heaven  can  alter  or 
modify,  must  have  our  own  sets  of  spiritual  and  carnal  men; 


156  THE  CLAPHAM  SCHOOL. 

of  those  who  can  make  it  clear  to  us  that  they  believe,  and  of 
those  who  cannot :  divisions  which  are  so  many  premiums  to 
hypocrisy,  so  many  hindrances  to  honest  men,  so  many  tempta- 
tions to  him  whose  experiences  have  acquired  for  him  the  title 
"  religious''  to  think  that  he  has  not  a  world  and  flesh  and  devil 
to  struggle  with,  while  he  may  be  convincing  a  looker-on,  by 
his  ordinary  behavior,  that  he  is  an  obedient  slave  of  all  three; 
which  tempt  those  who  are  treated  as  carnal  and  worldly,  to 
believe  what  they  are  told  of  themselves,  to  act  as  if  they  had 
not  that  longing  for  good,  which  they  yet  kuow  that  they  have, 
and  which  God  does  not  disown, for  His  Son  has  awakened  it, 
though  His  servants  may  be  stilling  it. 

Most  Bi  lly  the  curse  of  God  is  upon  these  Protestant 

devices,  and  we  shall  fee]  it  more  and  more.  But  is  the  refuge 
in  going  back  to  those  who  have  been  guilty  of  framing  devices 
for  the  same  ungodly  end  ;  devices,  the  condemnation  of  which 
is  written  in  the  history  of  the  world  ?  Js  it  not  rather  in  the 
bolder,  freer  proclamation  of  God's  universal  Gospel,  of  a 
Church  founded  on  Christ  the  Bon  of  iBod  and  the  Son  of 
man,  of  His  justification  of  each  man  as  a  spiritual  creature,  a 
child  of  God  created  to  trust  Him,  to  know  Him,  to  exhibit 
His  likeness  ? 

I  have  alluded  to  the  sympathy  which  existed  between 
orthodox  English  Churchmen  and  Unitarians  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, on  the  subject  of  the  conversions  and  spiritual  struggles 
upon  which  the  Evangelical  teachers  dwelt  so  much.  There 
was  an  alliance  also  between  these  same  parties  against  the 
leading  Evangelical  doctrine.  Both  alike  foretold  that  the 
consequence  of  holding  and  preaching  justitication  by  faith, 
must  be  the  weakening  of  moral  obligatio:  A  high-flown 

pedantical  morality  might  be  cultivated  by  those  who  adhered 
to  this  tenet;  plain  home-spun  English  honesty  and  good  faith 
would  be  uudermined  by  it." 


THEIR  WITNESS  FOR  TRUTH.  157 

When  the  Evangelical  leachers  appealed  to  our  Articles,  in 
defence  of  their  proposition,  they  used  a  good  argwmentu?n  ad 
hominem  for  one  division  of  their  opponents ;  it  had  no  weight 
at  all  for  the  other.  The  evidence  they  required  was  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  and  it  was  not  wanting.  The  Edinburgh  Eeview, 
by  adopting  Sir  James  Stephen's  delightful  Essay  "  On  the 
Clapham  School,"  has  practically  declared,  that  the  cause  of 
which  it  was  the  ablest  champion  forty  years  ago,  is  not  now 
defensible;  that  the  men  who,  if  the  words  of  its  accomplished 
clerical  ally  were  true,  must  have  been  utterly  fantastical,  as 
w7ell  as  fanatical, — governing  themselves  by  some  absurd 
imaginary  principle,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  business 
of  the  world,  were  really  simple,  clear-hearted,  clear-headed 
men,  who  were  faithful  in  their  callings,  who  infused  a  new  and 
juster  spirit  into  commercial  life,  who  compelled  politicians  to 
acknowledge  other  maxims  than  those  of  party,  another  object 
than  that  of  advancing  themselves.  There  can  be  now  no 
manner  of  doubt  that  the  existence  of  such  men  had  the  most 
purifying,  elevating  influence  upon  English  society ;  that  they 
did  very  much  to  overthrow  that  morality  of  sentiment,  which 
the  Anti-Jacobin  could  only  ridicule,  and  to  counteract  the 
stock-jobbing  tendencies  of  the  day,  which  some  of  those  whom 
the  Anti-Jacobin  most  lauded  were  nurturing.  Their  one 
great. testimony,  that  a  man  can  never  be  a  chattel,  was  the 
most  significant  practical  commentary  on  all  they  said  of  the 
worth  of  the  individual  soul ;  a  proof  how  thoroughly  their 
doctrine  possessed  their  lives ;  an  example  to  all  after  genera- 
tions; seeing  that  the  very  time  they  chose  for  making  this 
protest  was  the  one  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the  individual 
rights  of  men  was  frightening  them  and  most  of  their  political 
associates,  seeing  that  they  were  accused  of  promoting  Jaco- 
binism as  well  as  of  putting  the  wealth  and  commerce  of  the 
great  English  cities  in  peril,  and  that  they  nevertheless  perse 
vered,  in  the  faith  that  evil  must  be  denounced  at  all  hazards, 


158  APPEAL  TO  UNITARIANS. 

and  that  that  which  is  wrong  in  the  tendencies  of  a  time,  can 
only  be  effectually  resisted  by  the  assertion  of  the  right  which 
is  most  akin  to  it.  This  was  faith,  and  these  men  were  in  the 
true  sense  "just  by  faith."  Their  outward  acts  proceeded 
from  a  principle;  that  principle  was,  Trust  in  an  unseen  Person. 

"Why  do  those  who  talk  most  of  justification  by  faith  in  our 
day  exhibit  no  similar  fruits'?  Why  is  English  society  not 
raised  or  purified  by  their  presence  in  it?  Why  are  the  trades- 
men among  them  as  ready  as  any  others  to  mix  chicory  with 
their  coffee  1  the  merchants  and  politicians  to  job  ?  the  divines 
to  slander  ?  Is  it  not  because  they  believe  justification  by 
faith,  instead  of  believing  in  Christ  the  Justifier?  Is  not  the 
whole  principle  changed  ?  Is  not  the  formula  which  repre- 
sents the  principle  doing  duty  for  it  ? 

I  know  well  how  many  there  are  in  the  modern  Evangelical 
'school  who   imitate   the  faith   as   well  as  the  works  of  their 
fathers.      I  know  how  deeply  they  are  grieved  by  the  crowd 
of  heartless  aud  noisy  champions  who  defend  their  cause  be- 
cause it  is  the  popular  and  patronised  one  now,  as  they  would 
have  cursed  it  and  slandered  its  professors  fifty  years  ago.     I 
entreat   tiie  Unitarians  to  compare  these  two  classes ;  those 
whom  they  cannot  for  one  moment  suspect  of  hypocrisy,  to 
wrhose  honesty  and  simplicity  of  character  they  are  willing  to 
do  homage ;  and  those  whom  they  have  a  right  to  condemn  as 
loud,  talking,  unreal  bigots,  bitter  against  all  who  differ  from 
them,  in  proportion  as  they  feel  their  own  ground  insecure.     I 
entreat  them  to  ask  themselves  whether  the  most  striking  char- 
acteristic of  the  former,  so  far  as  they  are  able  to  judge,  is  not 
faith  in,  and  devotion  to,  a  living  Person,  whom  they  reverence 
as  their   Lord,   and   to  whom  they  cleave  as  their  Friend  i 
whether  the  others  are  not  as  evidently  fighting  for  a  notion  or 
a  theory  ?  Supposing  this  to  be  the  case,  then  are  not  the  former 
holding  with  a  strong  grasp  that  very  belief,  which  the  Unita- 
rian idea  of  Christ  would  wrest  from  them  ?     Would  not  the 


UNITARIAN  AND  EVANGELICAL  ALLIES.  159 

loss  to  the  other,  if  that  idea  were  forced  upon  them,  be  very 
inconsiderable  indeed?  If  the  anti-orthodox  faith  obtained 
the  ascendency  which  it  once  held  among  the  Vandals  in 
Africa,  and  were  as  persecuting  as  it  was  among  them,  is  there 
not  the  highest  probability  that  this  latter  class  would  supply 
a  band  of  ready,  promising,  very  soon  vehement,  converts 
to  the  new  system  ?  is  it  not  certain  that  the  former  would 
withstand  it  to  the  death  ? 

There  is  one  fact  recorded  by  the  faithful  and  affectionate 
biographer  of  the  Clapham  school  which,  I  should  be  very  dis- 
honest and  cowardly  if  I  suppressed.  It  is,  that  one  of  the 
neighbors  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  and  Mr.  Thornton,  who  was 
united  with  them  in  many  of  their  benevolent  projects  and  in 
close  personal  friendship,  was  professedly  and  notoriously 
a  Unitarian.  It  must  have  puzzled  him  greatly  at  first,  to  ex- 
plain howT  all  the  plain  and  practical  virtues  which  he  saw  in 
them,  not  only  accompanied, — that  he  might  have  accounted 
for  on  his  general  maxims  of  toleration, — but  manifestly  flowed 
out  of,  the  faith  which  he  had  been  taught  was  so  likely  to 
beget  immorality.  It  may  have  puzzled  them  almost  equally 
to  understand  how  he,  an  opposer  of  that  faith,  not  only  per- 
formed right  acts,  but  exhibited,  as  we  are  told  he  did,  that 
habitual  rectitude,  which  they  would  ordinarily  and  rightly  at- 
tribute to  some  deep  root.  I  suppose  he  came  at  last  to  some 
solution  of  his  difficulty  which  satisfied  him.  I  should  think 
their  faith  in  Christ  the  Justifier  must  have  been  the  solution 
of  theirs.  As  that  grew  stronger,  they  must  have  said  more 
and  more  frequently,  "  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  more  than  all  our 
systems  and  calculations.  Thou  mayest  perchance  have  rule 
in  a  thousand  hearts,  where  they  are  not  admitted,  even  as  it 
is  clear  Thou  dost  not  rule  in  many  where  they  are  received." 
And  that  conclusion,  instead  of  leading  them  to  Latitudinarian- 
ism,  will  have  saved  them  from  it.  How  could  they  ever  give 
up  their  faith  in  Christ  as  a  living  Person,  when  they  traced, 


160  COWPER. 

not  only  all  that  was  not  evil  in  themselves,  but  all  that  was 
good  in  any  man,  to  Him  3  If  they  had  not  only  seen  that 
truth  at  certain  times,  but  had  been  able  to  state  it  fully  at 
all  times,  from  how  much  of  misery  might  they  have  saved 
some  of  their  contemporaries,  from  how  much  vagueness  and 
infidelity  their  descendants  !  Need  Cowper  have  sunk  into 
despair  if  he  had  believed  that  Christ  was  in  him  at  all  times, 
and  was  not  dependent  upon  his  apprehension  or  faith  1 
Would  his  evangelical  biographers  have  been  reduced  to  the 
miserable — not  always  the  successful — apology,  that  his  mad- 
ness was  not  caused  or  aggravated  by  his  Christianity  ? 
Might  they  not  have  had  to  give  thanks  that  that  was  the  cure 
of  it  ?  If  Blanco  "White  had  ever  learnt  to  extend  that  belief 
to  all  men,  would  he  have  approached  the  confines  of  specula- 
tive atheism  ? 

I  ask  these  questions  with  fear  ;  but  I  think,  for  many  rea- 
sons, that  they  should  be  asked.  And  since  the  last  of  them 
has  a  very  close  interest  for  the  new  school  of  Unitarians,  I 
would  venture  to  offer  one  or  two  more  thoughts  for  their  re- 
flection. They  have  learnt  from  Mr,  Carlyle  and  others,  to 
speak  of  faith  in  a  tone  altogether  different  from  that  which 
was  common  in  the  last  generation.  I  would  respectfully  in- 
quire of  them,  whether  they  are  not,  ever  and  anon,  falling  into 
the  error  which  I  have  attributed  to  our  modern  Evangelicals, 
and  which  infects  many  beside  them, — that  of  making  Faith 
itself  an  object  of  trust,  almost  of  worship  ?  I  know  how  they 
will  escape  from  the  charge.  "  Oh  no  !"  they  will  say,  "  we 
mean,  not  faith  in  Faith,  but  faith  in  an  idea.  Don't  you  know 
what  Mr.  Emerson  says  of  the  Mahometans,  that  they  over- 
threw hosts,  because  they  were  horsed  on  an  idea  ?  What  we 
object  to  is,  your  doctrine  that  faith  in  a  Christian  idea  is  the 
only  faith."  I  beg  to  disclaim  any  such  representation  of  my 
doctrine.  I  acknowledge  that  Mahomet  triumphed  over  hosts, 
I  acknowledge  that  he  triumphed  by  faith.      Yes  !  by  faith  in 


FAITH   IN  AN  IDEA.  161 

a  real  living  God.  His  opponents  were  horsecLupon  ideas ;  (or 
rather  conceptions  of  their  own  mind  ;)  therefore  the  horses 
and  their  riders  were  cast  into  the  sea.  I  think  that  his  faith 
could  overcome  much,  because  it  was  faith  in  a  substance,  a 
reality,  a  Person.  I  do  not  think  it  could  overcome  the  world, 
or  the  flesh,  or  the  devil.  I  think  all  three  have  proved  in  the 
issue,  too  strong  for  the  Mahometan.  I  accept  the  Apostle 
John's  explanation  of  the  two  conditions  which  are  necessary 
to  a  complete  victory.  It  has  stood  the  teat  of  much  experience, 
and  will  I  think,  stand  the  test  of  all.  "  This  is  the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world  ;  even  our  Faith."  "  Who  is  he 
that  overcometh  the  world,  but  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus 
is  the  Son  of  God?" 


ESSAY    X. 


ON  REGENERATION. 


Mr.  Combe's  Essay  on  the  Physical  Constitution  of  man  has, 
I  am  told,  had  an  enormous  circulation,  both  here  and  in  Scot- 
land. I  cannot  wonder  at  its  success:  nor  do  I  regret  it, 
though  I  might  not  easily  find  a  book  from  the  conclusions  of 
which  I  mora  entirely  dissent.  It  has,  I  think,  brought  the 
question  of  education,  and  many  other  questions,  to  the  right 
issue.  What  is  the  constitution  of  man  ?  We  want  to  know 
that.  Till  we  know  it,  we  cannot  educate ;  we  cannot  do 
much  to  benefit  the  condition  of  men,  individually  or  socially. 
When  we  know  it,  our  main  business  will  be  to  ask  what  there 
is  which  has  hindered  men  from  being  in  conformity  with  their 
constitution ;  how  they  may  be  brought  into  conformity  with 
it.  That  I  understand  to  be  Mr.  Combe's  main  principle, 
and  I  heartily  assent  to  it.  I  do  not  think  it  is  now  for  the 
first  time  announced.  I  believe  men  have  been  trying  to  act 
upon  it.  But  I  believe  also  that  many  causes  have  prevent- 
ed us  from  stating  it  to  ourselves  consistently  ;  that  notions  of 
education  and  reformation,  inconsistent  with  this,  have  intruded 

(162) 


PHYSICAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN.  163 

themselves  into  our  minds  ;  that  they  are  confusing  us  greatly; 
that  any  one  who  recals  us  to  this  sound  and  orthodox  doctrine 
is  doing  us  a  service.  Mr.  Combe,  however,  claims  for  him- 
self an  honor  which  did  not  belong  to  our  ancestors.  He  says, 
that  they  knew  little  or  nothing  of  man's  physical  state,  of  the 
laws  of  his  body,  of  the  condition  under  which  he  exists  as  a 
citizen  of  this  earth.  I  am  not  inclined  to  dispute  either  the 
charge  against  them,  or  the  pretensions  which  he  puts  forth 
for  himself.  I  had  no  doubt  this  was  their  special  ignorance, 
and  that  it  was  the  mother  of  a  multitude  of  false  theories  and 
mischievous  practices.  I  think  God  has  given  us  great  means 
of  removing  the  primary  error,  and  its  fruits  ;  and  that  we  are 
guilty  in  His  sight,  if  we  do  not  use  them. 

But,  further,  Mr.  Combe  assumes  that  this  knowledge 
which  we  have  attained,  respecting  men's  physical  condition, 
is  the  only  secure  knowledge,  the  only  knowledge  upon  which 
we  can  act.  All  other,  he  thinks,  all  which  our  ancestors  sup- 
posed they  had,  is  a  mere  collection  of  guesses.  They  did  not 
agree  about  it  themselves ;  we  agree  about  it  still  less.  How 
can  we  teach  men  guesses  ?  How  can  we  apply  them  to 
practice  ?  When  they  are  put  into  one  scale,  and  ascertained 
laws  into  another,  must  not  they  kick  the  beam  ?  Practically, 
therefore,  even  if  we  have  ever  so  much  hankering  after  these 
guesses, — ever  so  much  of  what  we  call  Faith  in  them, — we 
must  leave  them  out  of  our  calculation.  And  is  it  not  proba- 
ble that  we  shall  find,  at  last,  that  we  had  the  best  possible 
right  to  leave  them  out ;  that  in  fact  these  physical  laws  explain 
them ;  that  if  we  understand  them,  we  understand  the  whole 
constitution  of  man  ? 

To  these  questions  I  answer  distinctly  :  Whenever  guesses 
are  balanced  against  laws,  guesses  must  kick  the  beam ;  if 
divines  and  moralists  have  nothing  but  guesses  to  produce, 
and  Mr.  Combe  has  laws,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt  but  of 
certainty,  that  he  will  be  the  teacher  of  the  world,  and  that 
they  must  make  their  way  out  of  it  as  fast  as  they  can.     I  ad- 


164  REASONS  FOR  DISSENTING  FROM  MR.   COMBE. 

mit,  further,  that  there  are  a  great  many  appearances  in  the 
history  of  the  world  and  in  our  present  position,  which  may, 
very  naturally,  lead  Mr.  Combe  and  thousands  of  others  to 
the  conclusion  that  divines  and  moralists  are  guessers  and  no- 
thing else.  Not  a  few  of  them  have  almost  admitted  that  they 
have  no  certain  ground  to  stand  on.  Many  of  those  who  do  not, 
rest  the  proof  that  they  can  teach  things  which  may  and  should 
l>e  believed  upon  reasons  which  do  not. satisfy  the  understand- 
ings and  consciences  to  wThich  they  are  presented.  The  divi- 
sions of  Christendom,  which  have  increased,  and  are  increasing, 
seem  to  make  out  the  strongest  prima  facie  case  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Combe's  practical  decision.  If  every  other  method  of  ed- 
ucation is  laid  aside  and  his  adopted,  as  the  only  one  which 
Btal  in  sanction  or  which  is  available  for  men  universally, 

he  and  those  who  have  joined  with  him  in  advocating  it  will 
be  much  less  answerable  for  the  result,  than  we  who  have 
opposed  him. 

After  what  I  have  said  in  previous  Essays,  it  would  be  great 
affectation  to  pretend  that  I  have  any  doubt  as  to  the  final 
ie  of  that  experiment.  As  I  have  throughout  been  tracing 
feelings  and  consciousnesses  in  men  which  point  to  some  spir- 
itual object,  and  which  are  uneasy,  feverish,  tormenting,  pre- 
cisely because  that  which  they  seek  they  cannot  find,  and  be- 
cause some  faint,  obscure  image  is  offered  to  them  as  the  sub- 
stitute for  it ;  as  I  have  maintained  that  these  feelings  and 
consciousnesses  are  not  less  active  now  than  in  former  days, 
but,  perhaps,  more  active, — active  in  quarters  where  the  influ- 
ence of  Church  doctrines  is  utterly  repudiated ;  as  I  have  dif- 
fered from  my  brethren  chiefly  in  confessing  the  wider  extent 
oi  these  consciousnesses,  the  evidence  which  proves  them  to 
exist  where  we  should  be  inclined  to  ignore  them ;  as  I  have 
been  reasoning  with  those  who  would  build  a  new  scheme  of 
divinity  on  these  very  consciousnesses, — one  which  is,  they 
say,  to  be  universal,  and  to  displace  our  exclusive  doctrines  : 


GOOD  HIS   DISCIPLES  MAY  DO.  165 

it  cannot  be  very  necessary  that  I  should  enter  at  large  into 
my  reasons  for  not  supposing  that  we  can  provide  for  all  the 
necessities  of  human  beings,  or  set  them  altogether  right,  by 
treating  them  as  creatures  possessing  a  stomach,  a  liver,  and 
a  brain.  It  is,  of  course,  an  obvious  and  familiar  theory,  that 
these  consciousnesses  are  secreted  in  the  stomach,  the  liver, 
and  the  brain ;  I  am  quite  willing  that  any  one  should  hold 
that  theory,  and  should  try  to  work  it  out.  I  believe  that  in 
the  course  of  his  workings  he  will  do  much  good  ;  that  he 
will  continually  observe,  and  may  enable  us  to  observe,  the 
close  connexion  of  these  bodily  functions  with  the  thoughts 
and  moral  state  of  human  beings, — their  action  and  re-action 
upon  each  other.  I  believe  that  the  more  the  facts  which 
establish  that  relation  and  inter-dependence  are  noted,  the  bet- 
ter;  that  the  more  they  are  meditated  upon,  the  better.  And 
this  because  the  thorough  patient  observation  and  meditation 
of  them  will,  I  am  sure,  set  right  a  great  many  crude  notions 
of  ours,  and  will  also  convince  the  inquirer  that  his  scheme 
must  fail ;  that  when  he  has  got  all  priests  and  traditions  out 
of  his  way,  he  is  only  beginning  the  process  of  clearance  which 
is  needful  for  his  success ;  that  he  must  get  the  thoughts  and 
convictions  which  have  helped  most  to  raise  and  civilize  human 
society  out  of  his  way  also  :  that  if  he  does  not,  they  will  per- 
plex and  torment  him  continually.  And  I  do  tell  him  plainly 
and  confidently,  that,  tolerant  man  as  he  is — honestly  tolerant, 
I  have  no  doubt,  and  eager  to  rid  the  earth  of  us,  because  we 
are  intolerant — he  will  not  be  able  to  expel  an  infinite  number 
of  religious  experiences,  fancies,  notions,  by  medicines  allopa- 
thic or  homeopathic:  he  will  be  obliged  to  resort  to  older, 
more  tried  methods.  He  must — I  would  say  it  to  him  in  the 
lowest  whisper — but  I  must  say  it,  and  he  and  the  world  will 
find  whether  I  am  right, — he  must  persecute.  The  inconvenient 
consciousnesses,  which  do  not  let  the  physical  constitution  act 
freely  and  healthily,  will  have  to  be  prohibited.     And  since  it 


166  WHY  THEY  3JUST  BE  PERSECUTORS. 

is  not  easy  to  reach  them,  by  decrees  and  swords,  the  expres- 
sion of  them  must  be  checked,  because  it  will  be  found  that 
they  are  just  as  infectious  as  scarlet  fever  or  small  pox.  I  do 
not  speak  these  words  lightly  or  inconsiderately.  The  history 
of  persecution  by  all  sects,  governments,  churches,  in  all  fami- 
lies and  neighborhoods,  seems  to  me  most  clearly  to  show  that 
it  originates  with  a  desire, — (often  an  honest  desire — it  was  so 
in  Trajan  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  when  they  ordered  the  deaths 
of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp) — to  put  down  that  which  is  found 
to  interfere  seriously,  either  with  the  quiet  of  society,  or  with 
the  comfortable  working  of  some  system  or  theory,  which  we 
have  convinced  ourselves  is  salutary  and  needful  for  human 
beings.  That  I  think  is  an  account  of  it  which  includes  all 
the  particular  motives  and  influences  being  of  course 
most  various.  And  I  cannot  understand  how  those  who  think 
that  there  are  certain  common  tendencies  in  all  men,  call  them 
physical  or  what  you  please,  should  suppose  themselves  free 
from  this  tendency,  which  experience  shows  to  be  so  general ; 
or,  at  least,  why  the  world  should  suppose  them  free 
from  it.  I  rather  think  the  danger  of  their  yielding  to  it 
greatly  increased  by  their  apparent  conviction  that  it  never  can 
assail  them. 

I  do  not,  however,  dream  that  warnings  of  this  kind  will 
deter  any  one  from  reducing  Mr.  Combe's  theory  to  practice  ; 
most  certainly  I  do  not  wish  that  they  should  hinder  any  one 
from  giving  it  the  most  serious  consideration.  There  are  some 
eminent  moralists  among  ourselves,  formed  in  the  school  of 
Butler,  who  will  be  inclined  to  dismiss  it  rather  superciliously 
on  another  ground.  They  will  exclaim,  "  Why,  are  Mr. 
Combe's  disciples  really  ignorant  that  a  much  closer  observer 
and  deeper  thinker  than  he  is,  has  been  in  this  field  before 
him,  and  has  shown  us  clearly  and  satisfactorily  that  there  is 
a  moral  constitution  in  which  all  human  beings  are  sharers  ? 
Have  they  never  heard  that  Butler  has  proved  social  affections 


BUTLER.  167 

to  be  an  integral  part  of  our  human  nature,  a  far  more  essen- 
tial part  of  it  than  the  senses  or  the  power  of  locomotion  ?  Do 
they  not  know  that  he  has  proved  self-love  and  resentment  to 
have  a  moral  basis  ?  Have  they  forgotten  the  evidence  by 
which  he  has  shown  that  the  Conscience  is  not  only  one  of  the 
faculties  of  our  nature,  but  the  lordly,  sovereign  faculty,  to 
which  all  owe  obedience  ?  Will  any  one  say  that  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  these  positions  have  been  demonstrated  are 
less  legitimate  or  less  scientific  than  those  to  which  Mr.  Combe 
has  had  recourse  ?" 

I,  at  least,  feel  no  temptation  to  maintain  that  paradox.  I 
should  find  it  difficult  to  say  how  much  I  honor  Butler,  or 
how  much  I  owe  to  his  discourses  on  Human  Nature.  But  I 
cannot  help  perceiving  that  there  are  causes  which  give  the 
exclusive  believers  in  a  physical  constitution, — immeasurably 
inferior  as  they  may  be  to  him, — a  very  decided  advantage 
over  him.  Though  Physiology  may  be  even  yet  in  its  infancy, 
the  physiologist  speaks  confidently  of  some  facts  and  laws 
which  he  has  ascertained.  As  Butler  is  commonly  interpreted, 
he  assumes  all  moral  principles  to  depend  merely  on  probable 
evidence.  Some  of  his  disciples  seem  to  look  upon  that  as  his 
most  characteristic  doctrine. 

Again,  there  are  certain  diseases  of  the  body  which  can 
without  any  hesitation  be  traced  to  certain  conditions  of  the 
atmosphere,  which  are  the  effects  of  bad  drainage,  neglect  of 
ventilation,  want  of  cleanliness ;  others,  which  can  be  directly 
referred  to  drunkenness  or  profligacy.  The  former  are  posi- 
tive evils  directly  curable  by  physical  remedies,  the  latter,  which 
we  commonly  call  moral,  might  be  avoided  by  a  man  who 
noticed  how  much  of  sickness,  pain,  poverty,  they  produced, 
But  when  our  social  affections  and  our  self-love  are  diseased, 
it  does  not  appear  that  Butler  has  pointed  out  any  satisfactory 
method  of  setting  them  right,  of  restoring  their  healthy 
activity.     He  shows  that  they  are  meant  for  us,  and  that  they 


168  HIS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CONSCIENCE. 

are  meant  to  be  in  harmony  ;  but  suppose  they  are  dormant, 
how  are  they  to  be  awakened  ?  suppose  they  are  in  discord, 
what  is  to  reconcile  them  ?  Is  it  not  likely  that  a  man  will  say, 
"  Mr.  Combe  helps  me  to  a  certain  extent.  He  shows  me  some 
influences  which  may  seriously  derange  the  economy  of  my 
individual  life,  and  of  the  world.  He  tells  me  how  I  may  avoid 
those  influences.  Till  you  can  give  me  some  aid  that  is  more 
efficient,  I  must  avail  myself  of  his."  The  student  of  Buth 
doctrine  on  the  Conscience,  is  often  forced  even  more  painfully 
upon  this  conclusion.  For  he  will  say  to  himself,  "  My  con- 
science ought,  you  say,  to  be  a  king.  But  it  is  not  a  king.  It  is 
a  captive.  How  shall  it  be  raised  to  its  throne  ?  And  when  it 
lias  got  a  temporary  ascendency,  can  I  trust  it?  Does  not 
Butler  himself  admit  the  posssibility  of  superstition  acting 
upon  it,  and  deranging  its  decisions  ?  Is  that  a  slight  excep- 
tion to  a  general  maxim'?  Does  not  all  history  show  that  the 
decrees  of  this  great  ruler  may  be  made  contradictory,  mon- 
strous, destructive,  by  this  disturbing  force,  which  Butler 
notices,  but  hardly  deigns  to  take  account  of?" 

And  thirdly,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  so  intelligent  and 
ardent  (I  dare  not  say,  so  excessive)  an  admirer  of  Butler  as 
Sir  James  Mackintosh,  has  complained,  that  while  he  is  bold 
and  clear  in  asserting  the  fact  of  a  conscience,  and  its  right  to 
dominion,  he  is  timid  and  hesitating  in  affirming  what  it  is,  and 
how  its  prerogatives  are  to  be  exercised.  Is  not  this  remark 
strictly  true  ?  Is  not  every  practical  student  of  Butler  obliged 
to  put  the  question  to  himself:  "  This  faculty  belongs  to  my 
nature  :  then  : — What,  to  me  ?  Is  the  conscience  mine  ?  Do  I 
govern  it,  or  does  it  govern  me  ?"  The  school-doctor  may 
dismiss  this  difficulty  with  great  indifference.  For  the  living 
man  everything  is  involved  in  the  answer  to  it. 

I  have  taken  Butler  as  the  highest  specimen  and  best  known 
representative  of  a  noble  class  of  thinkers  and  writers,  to  whom 
I  believe  we  are  under  the  greatest  obligations ;    who  have 


REGENERATION  ;  ONE  MEANING.  169 

brought  to  light  truths  which  we  could  never  less  afford  than 
now  to  lose  sight  of,  but  who  are  in  danger  of  being  utterly- 
supplanted  by  a  race  of  mere  physical  philosophers,  or  of  mere 
spiritualists,  if  we  are  not  prepared  to  examine  in  what  rela- 
tion they  stand  to  both.  The  great  facts  to  which  Butler  bore 
so  brave  a  witness,  cannot,  I  think,  be  explained,  while  we 
regard  them  merely  as  facts  in  man's  nature.  The  more  we 
look  into  them,  the  more  they  imply  an  ascent  out  of  that 
nature,  a  necessity  in  man  to  acknowledge  that  which  is  above 
it,  that  which  is  above  himself.  When  we  take  in  this  neces- 
sity, as  implied  in  our  constitution,  the  difficulties  which  beset 
the  most  full  and  masterly  explanation  that  can  be  given  of 
these  facts,  gradually  disappear.  I  will  endeavor  to  explain 
what  I  mean,  and  to  offer  one  more  evidence  that  Theology 
is  the  protector  and  basis  of  Morality  and  Humanity. 

The  Word  Regeneration  occupies  a  prominent  place  in  all 
summaries  of  Christian  Theology.  It  seems  to  many  who 
hear  it,  and  to  many  who  use  it,  as  if  it  imported  a  principle 
most  inconsistent  with  that  which  Butler  has  defended  in  his 
Sermons  on  Human  Nature.  "  If  a  man  requires  to  be  regen- 
erated," they  ask,  "  before  he  can  be  that  which  God  requires 
him  to  be,  that  upon  which  He  looks  with  approbation,  how 
can  human  nature  in  itself  be  the  good  thing  which  Butler 
would  have  us  believe  that  it  is  ?  Must  he  not  be  at  variance 
with  the  Scriptures,  at  variance  with  the  testimony  of  our 
hearts,  which  confess  the  Scriptures  to  be  true,  and  ourselves 
to  be  evil?"  I  am  always  glad  when  I  hear  a  person  who  has 
really  a  reverence  both  for  our  great  moralists  and  for  the 
Scriptures,  asking  this  question  ;  it  is  nearly  certain  to  lead 
him  into  a  clearer  apprehension  of  both.  I  am  always  sorry 
when  I  hear  a  person  asking  it  who  wishes  to  prove  Butler 
wrong  ;  it  is  nearly  certain  that  he  will  be  confirmed  in  the 
notion  that  he  himself  is  perfectly  right,  and  that  in  his  eager- 
8 


170  ANOTHER    MEANING. 

ness  not  to  twist  the  Bible  into  conformity  with  Butler's  notions 
he  will  twist  it  into  conformity  with  his  own. 

Regeneration  may  mean  the  substitution,  in  certain  persons, 
at  some  given  moment,  (say  in  the  ordinance  of  Baptism,  or  at 
a  crisis  called  conversion,)  of  a  nature  specially  bestowed  upon 
them,  for  the  one  which  belongs  to  them  as  ordinary  human 
beings.  No  doubt  it  has  this  meaning  for  a  great  many  Prot- 
estants, as  well  as  Romanists;  no  doubt  this  meaning  mixes 
with  another,  in  some  of  the  purest  and  noblest  hearts  to  be 
found  in  either  communion.  Such  a  doctrine  of  regeneration, 
I  apprehend,  is  quite  incompatible  with  the  doctrine  of  a  moral- 
ist, who  supposes  the  human  constitution, -*4hat  which  belongs 
to  us  not  as  special  individuals  different  from  the  race,  but  as 
members  of  the  race, — to  be  good,  and  any  violations  of  it  and 
transgressions  of  it  to  be  evil.  There  is  no  possibility,  so  far 
as  I  see,  of  bringing  these  two  schemes  of  thought  into  recon- 
ciliation;  they  are  directly, essentially  antipathic.     For,  to  sup- 

96  that  they  can  coexist  in  any  human  heart  or  intellect, 
merely  because  one  has  the  label'-  moral,"and  the  other,  "  theo- 
logical," is  to  suppose  that  heart  or  intellect,  a  mere  shop  or  ware- 
house of  opinions,  in  which  no  living  processes  are  going  on, 
but  where  goods  are  kept  to  meet  the  inconsistent  demands  of 
different  markets. 

Regeneration  may  mean  the  renovation  or  restitution  of  that 
which  has  fallen  into  decay,  repair  of  an  edifice  according  to 
the  ground-plan  and  design  of  the  original  architect.  This 
meaning  is  in  accordance  with  the  common  usage  of  language. 
It  is  more  like  the  sense  which  either  a  popular  writer  or  a 
philologer  would  put  upon  the  word,  supposing  he  did  not 
know  that  it  had  acquired  another.  And  it  is  a  signification 
which  cleaves  to  the  word  in  the  discourses  of  the  most  reli- 
gious people  ;  one  which  Romanists  and  Protestants  adopt  con- 
sciously in  the  way  of  argument,  and  fall  into  unconsciously  in 
their  prayers  and  exhortations.     It  is  obvious  that  such  a  sig- 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THAT  MEANING.  171 

nification  need  not  in  the  least  contradict  Butler's  idea  of  a 
human  constitution,  but  might  remarkably  illustrate  it.  There 
being  a  certain  constitution  intended  for  man  by  His  Crea- 
tor, and  certain  influences  about  him  or  within  him  which 
weakened  or  undermined  it,  the  author  of  the  work  might 
look  lovingly  upon  it,  and  devise  certain  measures  for  counter- 
acting those  influences,  and  bringing  it  forth  in  its  fulness  and 
order.  Some  such  theological  complement  of  his  moral  system 
we  may  suppose  gave  coherency  and  satisfaction  to  the  mind 
of  Butler  himself. 

But  there  is  a  great  difficulty  in  our  way,  if  we  seek  to  put 
this  idea  of  Regeneration  in  the  place  of  the  one  which  I  set 
forth  previously.  Such  a  regeneration  may  be  intended  for  us ; 
there  may  be  processes  leading  some  men,  even  leading  the 
world,  towards  it ;  but  are  there  any  signs  that  it  has  been 
accomplished  ?  Is  the  order,  in  this  sense,  restored  ?  Can 
even  good  men  be  said  in  this  sense  to  have  recovered  what 
the  race  had  lost  ?  Theologians  therefore  dwell  on  a  restitu- 
tion or  reformation,  or  complete  renewal  of  the  divine  image  in 
individuals,  as  an  object  of  hope.  Many  of  them  connect  with 
that,  a  restitution  and  reformation  of  the  earth  and  of  the 
order  of  human  society.  But  they  contend,  as  earnestly,  that 
there  is  something  already  obtained  by  Christ,  for  those  who 
will  receive  it.  This  something,  they  say,  is  very  real ;  we  are 
partakers  of  it  now,  not  to  be  partakers  of  it  in  some  future  ideal 
state ;  it  is  the  necessary  beginning  of,  and  preparation  for 
any  such  state.  And  the  words  "  birth"  and  "  generation," 
which  they  find  recurring  so  continually  in  Scripture,  do,  they 
contend,  suggest  another  thought  than  that  which  the  restora- 
tion of  an  edifice  suggests.  They  must  indicate  a  life  communi- 
cated from  a  Father.  A  life  of  this  kind  they  affirm  they  have 
received  ;  it  is  renewed  every  hour  ;  they  cannot  possibly  wait 
for  it  till  the  world  recovers  its  primitive  glory;  they  w7ant 
it  as  the  pledge  that  they  shall  not  sink  into  utter  debasement. 


172  DIALOGUE  WITH  NICODEMUS. 

Those  who  use  this  language,  refer  to  the  3d  chapter  of  St 
John's  Gospel,  as  containing  the  full  interpretation  of  the  doc- 
trine which  is  so  unspeakably  precious  to  them.  All  Chris- 
tians admit  that  this  is  the  passage  by  which  their  opinions 
respecting  Regeneration  must  be  tested.  No  humble  reader, 
I  suppose,  thinks  that  he  has  fathomed  the  depth  of  the  dis- 
course with  Nicodemus.  Every  humble  reader  probably  feels 
that  he  has  caught  glimpses  of  light  from  it  w7hich  he  would  not 
hange  for  the  most  costly  treasures  of  the  world.  He  perceives 
from  the  very  letter  of  the  Evangelist,  that  the  birth  is  from  above; 
that  a  Divine  Spirit  is  the  author  of  it;  that  it  is  the  birth  of  a 
spirit ;  that  it  is  the  condition  of  entering  a  kingdom  ;  that  it  has 
something  to  do  with  Baptism.  He  suspects  that  the  latter  part 
of  the  conversation  concerning  earthly  things  and  heavenly  things, 
the  Son  of  Man  who  came  down  from  Heaven  and  is  in  II 
ven,  the  serpent  that  was  lifted  up  in  the  wilderness,  the  love 
of  God  to  the  world  in  sending  His  only-begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life;  the  light  which  is  come  into  the  world,  the  con- 
demnation which  consists  in  loving  the  darkness,  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  former  part.  But  he  is  bewildered  by  the 
number  of  different  opinions  that  present  themselves  to  him 
pecting  the  relation  which  the  portions  of  this  truth,  as  our 
Lord  sets  it  forth,  bear  to  each  other.  "  How  comes  the  exter- 
nal rite  of  baptism,"  he  inquires,  "  to  be  so  linked  wTith  an 
inward  operation  ?  What  has  a  kingdom  to  do  with  a  m 
life?  Is  it  a  future  state  that  is  denoted  by  the  term  Ileav< 
or  if  not,  what  is  it  ?  How  is  the  Son  of  Man  said  to  be  in 
this  Heaven,  even  while  He  is  upon  earth  ?  Why  should  the 
exaltation  of  the  Son  of  Man  upon  the  cross  be  referred  to  in 
this  connexion,  all-important  as  it  may  be  in  reference  to  the 
doctrine  of  redemption,  or  in  the  expiation  for  sins  ?  Why  is 
God's  love  to  the  world  brought  into  a  passage  which  seems 
to  speak  expressly  of  the  condition  of  those  who  are  separated 


CENTRE  OF  THE  DISCOURSE.  173 

from  the  world  ?  Is  Dot  the  condemnation  of  men  this,  that 
they  do  not  partake  of  this  divine  and  spiritual  birth  ?  Why- 
is  it  declared  to  be  that  they  love  darkness  rather  than  light  ?" 

All  our  disagreements,  intellectually  considered,  arise  from 
the  answers  which  are  given  to  these  questions.  Each  of  us  is 
disposed  to  fix  upon  some  one  of  our  Lord's  statements,  as  that 
to  which  he  shall  refer  all  the  rest.  If  we  desire  to  have  our 
thoughts  orderly,  not  loose  and  incoherent,  not  mere  qualifi- 
cations or  contradictions  one  of  another,  there  must  be  a  cen- 
tre round  which  they  revolve.  But  it  is  unspeakably  import- 
ant that  we  should  not  choose  this  centre  and  so  create  a  sys- 
tem for  ourselves  ;  but  that  wTe  should  find  it.  Then  we  may 
find  also  what  are  the  orbits  and  inter-dependencies  of  the 
bodies  which  it  illuminates.  Will  any  one  say  that  I  am  wrong, 
if  I  affirm  that  God  Himself  is  the  centre  here,  that  the  love 
with  which  he  loved  the  world,  is  that  to  which  our  Lord  is 
leading  us,  that  if  we  learn  from  Him  what  that  love  is,  what 
it  has  designed,  what  it  has  accomplished,  we  shall  be  in  a 
better  condition  to  apprehend  all  that  He  is  teaching  us  respect- 
ing the  birth  from  above  ? 

Starting  from  this  point,  then,  it  seems  to  me  that  this  love 
is  declared  to  have  manifested  itself  in  setting  forth  the  only, 
begotten  Son,  not  merely  as  the  author  of  forgiveness,  but  as 
the  very  ground  and  source  of  man's  eternal  life.  Looking  up 
to  the  cross  as  the  exhibition  of  God's  love, — as  the  exhibition 
of  the  true  and  perfect  Man, — the  man  does  not  perish  by  the 
bite  of  that  serpent  which  is  continually  stinging  him,  that 
spirit  of  selfishness  which  is  continually  separating  him  from 
God  and  his  brethren.  He  sees  that  Eternal  Life  which  was 
with  the  Father,  and  which  in  the  Divine  Word  is  manifested 
to  us;  he  becomes  an  inheritor  of  it.  But  his  perception  does 
not  make  the  fact  which  he  perceives.  The  Son  of  Man,  who 
is  one  with  men  and  one  with  God,  who  is  in  Heaven,  in  the 
presence  of  God,  whilst  He  is  walking  on  earth,  has  come 


174  BArTiSM ;  life  ;  heaven. 

down  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  earth,  to  unite 
earth  and  heaven  in  Himself.  He  has  come  to  claim  men  as 
spiritual  beings  capable  of  this  spiritual  life,  inheritors  of  this 
spiritual  kingdom.  Baptism  declares  this  to  be  their  proper 
and  divine  constitution  in  Christ.  All  who  receive  it  claim  the 
kingdom  wmich  God  has  declared  to  be  theirs.  They  take  up 
their  rights  as  spiritual  beings.  He  bestows  His  spirit  upon 
them  that  they  may  enjoy  these  rights  ;  that  they  may  be  as 
much  born  into  the  light  of  Heaven,  into  the  light  of  God's 
countenance,  as  the  child  is  born  out  of  the  womb  into  the 
light  of  the  sun.  That  countenance  is  shining  upon  them,  the 
Spirit  is  with  them  to  open  their  eyes,  that  they  may  take  in 
the  light  of  it.  And  this  is  the  condemnation,  and  this  will  be 
the  only  condemnation,  that  they  do  not  come  to  it,  that  they 
shut  the  eyes  of  their  spirit  to  it,  that  they  love  darkness  rather 
than  light,  because  their  deeds  are  evil. 

We  have  considered  three  views  of  Regeneration,  each  of  which 
was  plausible,  each  of  which  had  arguments  from  Scripture  and 
arguments  from  experience  to  allege  on  its  behalf.  The  first  of 
them  was  directly  opposed  to  Butler's  doctrine  of  a  moral  con- 
stitution for  man.  The  second  was  compatible  with  it  but  scarcely 
accorded  with  the  exact  language  of  Scripture.  The  third 
promised  something  like  a  kingdom  or  constitution  to  man 
hereafter,  but  seemed  to  make  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
society  at  present  rather  an  anomaly  and  an  exception  among 
human  societies.  If  we  may  take  Christ's  own  exposition,  if 
we  may  assume  Him  to  be  the  Regenerator  of  humanity,  a 
light  seems  to  fall  on  all  these  different  aspects  of  the  theolo- 
gical doctrine;  we  need, not  despair  of  their  being  reconciled. 
And  that  same  light  enables  us  to  remove  the  practical  obsta- 
cles w?hich  hinder  the  application,  even  the  acceptance,  of 
Butler's  ethical  principle. 

First,  that  great  and  serious  objection  of  his  affectionate 
critic.  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  is  taken  away,     The  name,  Con- 


APPLICATION  TO  BUTLER.  175 

science,  would  seem  to  import,  not  a  power  which  rules  in  us, 
but  rather  our  perception  and  recognition  of  some  power  very 
near  to  us,  which  has  a  claim  on  our  obedience.  1  think  this 
interpretation  of  the  word  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  most  fami- 
liar, and  at  the  same  time  by  the  most  serious  and  thoughtful, 
usage  of  it.  The  most  conscientious  man  does  not  speak  of 
his  conscience  as  giving  him  a  law;  he  speaks  of  it  as  confess- 
ing a  law  which  he  dares  not  violate.  No  one,  I  believe,  felt 
this  more  strongly  than  Butler.  Again  and  again  one  per- 
ceives how  much  it  penetrated  his  whole  mind.  If  the  indi- 
vidual conscience  undertakes  to  lay  down  laws  of  its  own,  his 
idea  of  a  human  constitution,  that  is,  of  a  law  or  order  for  all 
human  beings,  is  absolutely  set  at  nought.  And  yet  he  was 
forced  to  say,  that  in  our  nature,  conscience  is  the  lordly  fac- 
ulty, the  one  entitled  to  speak  and  to  be  obeyed.  But  if  I  am 
entitled  to  say,  "  There  is  a  Lord  over  my  inner  man  to 
whom  I  am  bound,  apart  from  whom  I  cannot  exercise  the 
functions  which  belong  to  me  as  a  man,  according  to  the  law 
of  my  being,"  conscience  can  be  restored  to  its  simple  and 
natural  signification ;  it  does  not  demand  sovereignty,  but  pays 
homage.  And  since  it  is  the  witness  of  His  authority  who 
governs  all  the  faculties  and. energies  of  man,  since  it  claims 
their  service  for  Him,  since  it  testifies  of  every  act  of  disobe- 
dience done  by  any  of  them  to  Him,  it  does  occupy  that  posi- 
tion relative  to  all  of  them  which  Butler  has  assigned  it.  They 
are  all  out  of  order  when  they  do  not  listen  to  its  voice ;  they 
are  all  in  harmony  when  its  suggestions  are  heeded.  It  may 
in  the  most  true  sense  be  said,  that  we  are  only  in  our  natural, 
that  is  to  say,  in  our  orderly  and  reasonable  state,  when  every- 
thing within  us  is  preserving  its  subordination  to  its  righteous 
ruler.  It  can  be  said  with  equal  truth, — and  one  assertion 
illustrates  instead  of  contradicting  the  other, — that  naturally, 
that  is  to  say,  when  we  follow  our  own  inclinations,  when  we  set 
up  to  govern  ourselves,  and  forget  that  there  is  a  supernatural 


1 76  SUPERSTITION. 

government  established  within  us,  we  become  disorganized  and 
bestial. 

The  habits  of  Butler's  time,  perhaps,  did  not  allow  him  to 
use  this  language.  Hence  that  hesitation  and  timidity  which 
Mackintosh  so  livingly  and  admirably  describes.  We  may 
see  in  it  the  shrinking  of  a  reverent  thinker  when  he  approaches 
an  awful  truth,  interwoven  with  his  own  being,  which  he  is  not 
able  distinctly  to  express.  But  what  was  reverence  in  him, 
would  be,  it  seems  to  me,  cowardice  in  us.  We  have  been 
driven  forward  into  a  new  position,  in  which  we  must  either 
grasp  a  higher  truth,  or  let  the  one  go  which  he  vindicated.  I 
feel  that  I  am  not  confessing  Christ  before  men,  that  I  am 
ashamed  of  Him  and  of  His  words,  if  I  do  no  that  it  is  of 

Him  my  conscience  speaks,  that  I  am  under  His  government, 
in  His  kingdom.  Nor  dare  1  hide  from  any  man  the  good 
news  that  he,  too,  is  a  subject  of  this  kingdom,  that  the  & -gen- 
erator of  humanity  is  his  Lord  and  Master,  or  the  warning  that 
if  he  chooses  another  condition  than  this,  he  is  declaring  war 
with  his  Creator,  with  his  fellows,  and  with  himself. 

Next,  if  this  truth  be  accepted,  Butler's  honest  admission 
respecting  the  possible  effects  of  superstition  in  perverting  the 
decrees  of  the  conscience  will  no  longer  be  fatal  to  his  princi- 
ple. Till  the  true  Lord  of  the  conscience  has  made  Himself 
known  to  it,  of  necessity  it  must  go  about  seeking  rest  and 
finding  none.  Every  false  king  will  assume  dominion  over  it ; 
as  it  bows  to  the  impostor  it  will  become  beclouded  in  its 
judgments;  the  more  it  tries  to  regulate  its  vassals,  the  more 
mischief  it  will  do  them,  the  more  cruel  they  will  feel  its 
tryranny.  It  may  prescribe  those  very  outrages  on  physical 
rules,  which  I  said  would  oblige  the  disciples  of  Mr.  Combe 
to  coerce  it.  It  may  prescribe  outrages  on  the  social 
affections,  and  so  may  drive  the  disciple  of  Butler,  with 
all  his  reverence  for  its  authority,  to  coerce  it.  Butler  con- 
fesses the  necessity  ;  the  appeals  which  he  makes  to  our  fears 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  FLESH.  177 

when  he  most  desires  to  convince  us  that  we  have,  in  our- 
selves, a  love  of  right  for  its  own  sake,  are  an  acknowledgment 
of  it.  But  if  we  believe  that  Christ  is  the  ruler  of  this  con- 
science, how  beautifully  that  distinction  of  St.  Paul  between  the 
flesh  and  the  spirit  to  which  I  alluded  in  my  last  Essay,  would 
interpret  the  mystery  of  His  divine  government ;  what  a  solid 
basis  would  it  lay  for  ethics  and  practical  education  !  All  the 
actual  punishments  which  overtake  wrong  doing,  all  the  fears 
of  punishment  which  visit  the  wTrong  doer,  are  needful  for  that 
evil  nature  in  us,  which  is  always  seeking  to  break  loose  from 
law,  and  which  would  reduce  us  into  mere  animals.  But  the 
Christ,  the  true  bridegroom  of  man's  spirit,  is  ever  drawing  it 
towards  Himself, — is  holding  out  to  it  freedom  from  evil,  and 
the  knowledge  of  Himself  as  its  high  reward.  Owming  Him, -the 
man  rises  out  of  dark  superstitions,  out  of  immoral  practices ; 
he  recognises  the  fitness  of  all  God's  arrangements  in  the 
physical  and  moral  world ;  he  claims  for  the  body  as  wTell  as 
the  soul  a  redemption  from  all  which  corrupts  and  degrades  it. 
The  full  bearing  of  the  principle  that  Christ  is  the  regenera- 
tor of  humanity,  upon  Butler's  view  of  the  human  constitution, 
is  not  however  understood  till  we  have  sought  to  apply  his 
doctrine  that  we  are  essentially  social  beings  just  as  much  as 
we  are  individuals.  I  say,  to  apply  it ;  for  nothing  is  easier  than 
to  state  the  maxim  ;  it  may  sound  to  us  like  the  veriest  com- 
mon-place. But  when  we  have  tried,  in  any  particular  case, 
to  "  bid  self-love  and  social  be  the  same,"  we  have,  probably, 
found  that  we  could  utter  that  command,  just  as  we  could  call 
spirits  from  the  vasty  deep  ;  but  that  self-love  and  social  did  not 
do  as  they  were  bid,  any  more  than  the  spirits  came  when  they 
were  called.  The  theoretical  common-place  then  becomes  the 
hardest  of  all  practical  paradoxes :  and  yet  in  its  very  difficulty 
there  lay  the  strongest  witness  of  its  truth.  I  am  certain  that 
I  have  no  self  that  I  can  love, — nay,  that  self  must  be  an  object 
of  intense  torment  and  hatred  to  me,  unless  I  am  the  member 
8* 


178  SELF-LOVE  AND  SOCIAL. 

of  a  body.  I  am  certain  that  I  cannot  be  the  member  of  a 
body  consisting  of  persons,  unless  I  am  myself  a  person  ;  that 
I  cannot  love  another  person  unless  I  do  also  love  myself. 
~Bring  in  the  belief  of  the  one  Head  and  Brother  of  each  man, 
the  one  Centre  of  society,  and  that  great  moral  contradiction  is 
felt  to  be  a  great  moral  necessity  ;  one  which  we  can  welcome 
and  rejoice  in,  and  act  upon. 

"But  alter  all,"  the  disciples  of  Mr.  Combe  will  say,  "you 
have  not  proved  these  positions.  They  have  not  the  certainty 
wmich  belongs  to  our  statements  respecting  the  physical  con- 
stitution of  man.  Butler,  in  his  Analogy,  fairly  admits  that  he 
is  dealing  only  with  probabilities  and  chances.  That  is  affirm* 
ed  by  his  disciples  especially,  to  be  his  great  merit.  You  may 
pretend  that  you  have  given  certainty  to  what  was  doubtful  in 
his  speculations  by  adding  to  them  the  words  of  Scripture.  But 
you  have  only  given  Ufl  your  interpretation  of  those  words, 
which  is  surely  not  entitled  to  any  great  weight.  It  is  but  a 
guess  sustaining  a  guess/' 

Xow  I  am  bound  to  own  that  Butler  did  use  words 
addressed  to  the  loose  thinkers  of  his  day,  the  men  of  wit  and 
fashion  about  town,  which  seemed  to  confound  probabilit 
with  chances,  to  suggest  the  thought  that  we  ought  to  calcu 
late  the  odds  for  and  against  the  truth  of  a  religious  principle, 
and  that,  if  there  is  a  slight  balance  in  favor  of  it, — nay,  none 
at  all, — we  are  to  throw  in  the  danger  of  rejecting  it,  and  so 
force  ourselves  into  the  adoption  of  it.  I  mourn  over  these 
words  as  I  read  them,  feeling  how  much  a  great  and  good  man 
sacrificed  of  what  was  dearest  to  his  heart  for  the  sake  of  an 
argument um  ad  homincm,  which,  after  all,  was  not  an  argu- 
ment that  ever  reached  the  conscience  of  any  man,  or  that 
could  do  so  if  the  conscience  is  what  Butler  affirms  it  to  be. 
But  I  have  mourned  more  deeply  when  I  have  seen  the>e  pa- 
culled  out  by  persons  of  great  acuteness, — acuteness 
cultivated  in  an  Aristotelian,  not  a  Baconian,  school, — and 


DOCTRINE  OF  CHANCES.  179 

used  first  as  a  representation  of  the  whole  plan  and  purpose  of 
Butler,  secondly  as  the  basis  of  a  theory  which  was  to  save 
English  divines  from  the  necessity  of  demanding  either  the 
dogmatical  certainty  which  Rome  promises  to  her  children,  or 
the  scientific  certainty  which  Protestants  seem  to  be  craving 
for.  Thanks  be  to  God,  that  house  of  cards  has  fallen  down. 
The  ingenious  architect  has,  himself,  undertaken  to  expose  it3 
instability.*  How  much  better  for  him  that  he  should  be 
seeking  even  such  a  temporary  standing-ground, — sandy  and 
shifting  as  I  believe  it  to  be, — as  Rome  can  afford  him,  till  he 
finds  an  eternal  rock,  neither  of  authority  nor  of  probabilities, 
on  which  he  and  the  Church  may  rest; — nay,  how  much  better 
that  one  in  whose  heart  there  is,  I  am  convinced,  a  real,  even 
a  passionate,  love  of  Truth,  should  pass  through  all  imaginable 
subtleties,  distortions,  impostures  of  the  intellect,  in  his  way  to 
it,  than  that  he  should  be  content  with  a  scheme  which  shuts 
out  Truth  from  men  as  an  unattainable,  scarcely  desirable, 
treasure !  How  much  better  for  us  that  we  should  incur  the 
bitterest  hatred  and  scorn,  expressed  with  the  most  admirable 
cleverness  and  wit,  of  one  who  I  3-et  doubt  not  is  capable  of 
all  generous  affections,  than  that  we  should  be  saddled  with  a 
theory  which  was  leading  numbers  of  young  men  to  think  that 
the  main,  perhaps  the  only,  reason  for  believing  in  a  God  is, 
that  if  there  should  happen  to  be  one,  He  might  send  them  to 
hell  for  denying  His  existence  !  I  am  sure  that  the  thought  of 
tempting  any  to  such  an  opinion  would  have  been  horrible  to 
this  writer  at  all  times ;  I  have  dared  to  put  it  into  words,  that 
it  may  awaken  horror  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are  left  among 
us,  and  may  lead  them  to  reflect  on  the  infinite  peril  of  resort- 
ing to  plausible  arguments  for  Faith,  which  may  prove  to  be 
hiding-places  for  Atheism. 

*  Compare  Father  Newman's  book  on  "  Romanism  and  Popular  Pro- 
testantism," with  the  masterly  demolition  of  his  theory  of  probabilities 
in  his  "Essay  on  Development." 


180  C£KTAINTY  IN  PHYSICS. 

But  to  return  to  Butler.  I  entirely  deny  that  either  the 
conclusions  of  his  disciples,  or  his  own  inconvenient  statements 
in  some  passages  of  the  Analogy,  represent  his  design  or  his 
method  as  it  conies  out  in  the  first  part  of  that  great  work,  or 
in  the  Sermons  at  the  Rolls  Court.  On  the  contrary,  he  is 
pursuing  precisely  the  same  end  as  the  physical  inquirer,  by  an 
inductive  process  as  nearly  as  possible  the  counterpart  of  his. 
He  is  as  unwilling  to  accept  hasty  generalizations  as  every 
disciple  of  Bacon  must  be;  he  is  as  ready  to  look  at  facts  and 
test  them  ;  he  seeks  to  be  delivered  from  vague  hypotb  hat 

he  may  feel  the  ground  upon  which  he  is  actually  standing. 
What  more  can  Mr.  Combe  do?  lie  knows  perfectly  well 
that  he  cannot  lay  down  conclusions  which  shut  out  further 
inquiry;  that  he  would  be  a  very  mischievous  man  if  be  could; 
that  he  cannot  have  certainty  in  this  sense;  that  he  disclaims 
it.  He  must  collect  facts  respecting  the  condition  of  men  in 
different  circumstances ;  respecting  their  states  of  health  and 
of  disease;  respecting  the  treatment,  mischievous  or  beneficial, 
which  has  been  applied  to  them.  Such  facts  must  not  be 
merely  observed,  loosely  and  carelessly;  they  must  be  sub- 
mitted to  a  series  of  searching  experiments.  There  must  be 
eriments  on  the  bodily  frame  which  illustrate  those  on  the 
influences  to  which  it  is  exposed  ;  the  anatomist,  physiologist, 
chemist,  geologist,  must  each  contribute  his  quota  of  observa- 
tion and  thought,  to  the  confirmation  or  correction  of  the  other. 
Then,  after  many  theories  have  been  accepted,  and  thrown 
aside,  some  simple  law  is  brought  to  light,  the  great  test  of 
which  is  its  power  of  explaining  facts,  new  and  old;  so  far  as 
it  can  do  that,  it  sustains  its  character ;  when  it  fails,  it  is  not 
discarded,  but  it  is  supposed  that  some  deeper,  more  compre- 
hensive law  is  vet  to  reward  the  toil  and  humility  of  the 
inquirer.  "What  can  be  better  or  truer  than  investigations  of 
this  kind  ?  What  duty  can  be  greater,  than  to  avail  ourselves 
of  the  results  to  which  they  lead  ?     But  the  more  we  study 


THE    BIBLE.  181 

them  and  admire  them,  the  less  shall  we  adopt  those  loose 
expressions  which  represent  this  evidence  as  something  altoge- 
ther different  in  kind  from  that  which  is  open  to  moralists  and 
divines,  if  they  like  to  make  use  of  it. 

They  may  scorn  facts ;  they  may  cling  to  anticipations  and  de- 
finitions which  they  bring  with  them;  just  as  all  the  old  physi- 
cal students  did  ;  but  if  they  take  that  course  they  depart  from 
all  the  precedents  of  the  wisest  of  their  predecessors ;  they 
depart  still  more  from  the  precedents  of  Scripture.  For  the 
Bible  is  a  book  in  which  God  is  teaching  His  creatures  induc- 
tion by  setting  them  an  example  of  it.  Nothing  is  there  taught 
as  it  is  in  the  Koran,  by  mere  decree ;  everything  by  life  and 
experiment.  It  offers  us  the  severest  tests  of  its  own  credi- 
bility. It  meets  the  facts  of  human  life  and  the  difficulties  of 
human  speculation  ;  it  undertakes  to  interpret  the  one,  to  show 
us  the  source  of  the  other.  If  we  accept  Revelation  for  this 
purpose,  we  do  not  put  our  own  sense  upon  it ;  we  go  to  it  in 
our  great  necessity,  to  see  whether  it  can  give  us  the  help  we 
need  ;  we  expect  that  if  it  is  God's,  He  will  do  for  us  what  we 
cannot  do  for  ourselves.  If  that  wThicb  was  a  presumption 
before, — a  presumption  which  I  could  not  disowm  without  dis 
owning  all  my  own  processes  of  thought  and  judgment,  but  yet 
wThich  I  did  not  dare  to  pronounce  certain,  because  I  was  afraid 
lest  some  idiosyncrasy  of  my  mind  should,  in  spite  of  my  watch- 
fulness, have  mixed  itself  jvith  these  processes,  and  falsified  the 
result, — becomes  clothed  with  a  new  force,  illuminated  with  a 
new  brightness ;  if  it  comes  back  to  me,  stripped  of  all  that 
was  merely  my  own,  and  yet  I  recognize  it  as  more  mine  than 
ever, — I  do  not  know  what  the  reason  can  ask  for  besides,  to 
quiet  it,  and  satisfy  it.  That,  and  more  than  that,  I  think  the 
belief  of  Christ  as  the  Regenerator  of  humanity  does  for  all 
the  questionings  and  demands  of  human  suffering  beings;  that 
and  more  than  that,  for  the  speculations  of  the  faithful  moral 
student  who  has  been  painfully  tracing  the  vestiges  of  an  order 


182  TEST  OF  TRUTH. 

and  constitution  in  the  thoughts  and  doings  of  himself  and  his 
fellow-creatures. 

What  I  say  is  to  be  tested  by  life,  and  cannot  be  proved  by 
words.  But  since  Mr.  Combe  and  his  followers  are  rightly 
and  naturally  disturbed  by  the  discords  and  contradictions  of 
Christian  divines, — by  their  practical  contradictions  even  more 
than  their  speculative, — by  the  evil  acts  and  courses  which 
ha\  med  to  follow  from  their  dogmas,  and  by  their  eager- 

ness to  enforce  them, — I  shall  draw  the  evidence  I  produce 
from  this  source  ;  I  shall  maintain  that  these  can  be  distinctly 
traced  to  the  unbelief  of  Christians  in  the  fact  that  Christ  is  the 
Regenerator  of  man ;  that  this  faith,  had  they  maintained  it, 
must  have  made  their  conduct  and  their  influence  on  society 
very  different  from  what  they  have  actually  been. 

1.  It  may  sound  like  the  strangest  of  all  charges  against 
Romanists  to  say  that  they  have  undervalued  the  Church  ; 
that  they  have  thought  meanly  of  it  in  relation  to  God  and  to 
man,  of  its  work  and  of  its  powers.  But  I  do  believe  that  that 
is  the  very  charge  which  we  have  most  right  to  bring  against 
both  Latins  and  Greeks ;  it  is  for  this  sin,  I  hold,  that  they  have 
been  called,  and  will  be  called,  to  give  account  before  the  tri- 
bunal of  Him  who  has  committed  to  them  their  stewardship, 
and  before  those  for  whose  use  they  have  received  it.  Do  you 
say,  u  They  have  done  their  very  utmost  to  exalt  the  Church  ; 
they  have  boasted  of  it  as  divine ;  they  have  said  that  there 
was  nothing  in  earth  or  heaven  that  it  could  not  bind  and  loose  ; 
they  have,  till  men  became  too  enlightened  to  believe  them,  re- 
duced their  doctrine  to  practice,  and  made  the  priest  the  ruler 
over  the  spirits,  souls,  bodies  of  men  V  Even  so  ;  your  words 
are  true ;  they  establish  my  position.  The  Apostles,  instead 
of  doing  their  utmost  to  exalt  the  Church,  did  nothing.  They 
spoke  of  the  Church  as  being  in  God  the  Father  and  in  Jesus 
Christ ;  they  told  those  who  belonged  to  it  that  they  were  cre- 
ated and  redeemed  in  Christ  Jesus  and  called ;  they  bade  them 


POWERS  AND  WORKS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  183 

remember  that  they  had  no  worth  or  greatness  of  their  own ; 
they  said  that  they  were  to  be  witnesses  to  all  men  of  the  re- 
demption which  had  been  wrought  out  for  them  by  the  love  of 
God  through  the  sacrifice  of  Christ ;  they  said  that  in  propor- 
tion as  they  renounced  idols,  and   devil  worship,  and  parties, 
and  claimed  the  dignity  of  spiritual  creatures,  and  acted  as  if 
they  were  sons  of  God   and  members  one  of  another,  they 
would  be  such  witnesses.    How  could  men  who  had  this  posi- 
tion make  one  for  themselves  ?     What  had  men  who  could  ex- 
ercise such  a  mighty  power  over  the  world  to  do  with  asserting 
or  vaunting  of  if?     No  Jew  or  heathen  believed  that  they  had 
it ;  but  tltey  believed  it,  and  acted  as  if  they  did.      When  the 
Church's  fuith  in  its  divine  birth,  in  its  regenerate  position,  in 
God's  calling,  was  growing  weak,  then  it  must  begin  to  say 
how  very  divine  it  is.     When  it  no  longer  understands  itself 
to  be  in  Christ,  to  be  by  its  very  nature  aifd  constitution  spiri- 
tual, it  must  begin  to  assert  that  a  certain  mysterious  spiritu- 
ality had  been  conferred  upon  it,  apart  from  Christ ;  it  must 
suppose  that  He  had  delegated  His  functions  to  those  who 
should  have  been  the  witnesses  that  he  was  continually  and  in 
person  exercising  them ;  at  last  the  notion  must  be  adopted, 
and  be  regarded  as  necessary  to  the  unity  of  the  Church,  that 
one  person  was  representing  Him  in  His  absence,  wras  his  com- 
missioned vicar. 

Every  pretension  of  the  church,  which  has  been  felt  as  tyran- 
nical and  intolerable  by  the  inward  conscience  and  reason  of 
mankind,  has  arisen  from  this  low  and  imperfect  view  of  its 
own  position.  It  must  force  men's  assent  to  opinions,  because 
it  did  not  believe  that  it  had  power  to  elevate  them  into  a 
knowledge  of  the  Truth  ;  it  must  hold  down  human  thoughts 
and  energies,  because  it  did  not  believe  that  it  had  a  commis- 
sion to  awaken  and  emancipate  them  ;  it  must  be  the  worst  of 
all  civil  rulers,  the  most  miserable  of  policemen,  the  most  des- 
picable of  intriguers,  because  it  did  not  feel  that  the  God  of 


184       POWERS  AND  WORKS  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

• 

Truth  was  with  it ;  that  it  might  make  men  citizens  of  His 

kingdom ;  might  raise  them  out  of  the  inner  corruptions,  the 

evil  results  of  which  troubled  the  civil  ruler — demanded  the  aid 
of  the  policeman;  that  it  might  deliver  people  and  their  rulers 
from  the  habit  of  lying  one  to  another.* 

But  the  Church  has  done — all  honest  modern  historians,  in- 
fidel as  well  as  Protestant,  confess  it— other  works  than  these. 
However  strange  it  may  be  to  say  that,  having  committed  all 
these  abominations,  she  has  yet  been  a  civilizer  and  educator 
of  human  beings  ;  has  given  a  new  principle  to  society  ;  has 
helped,  at  least,  to  break  the  chains  of  the  serf;  has  made  the 
new  world  quite  unlike  the  old  ;  this  has  been  said,  and  must 
be  said.  Those  who  cannot  bear  the  inconsistency,  cannot 
bear  history.  If  they  want  it  to  utter  either  fact  without  the 
other,  they  must  write  it  afresh  ;  it  is  not  what  (Jod  has  writ- 
ten.   Both  facts  muft  be  explained  in  some  way.   If  I  find  that 

m  who  have  acted  in  the  faith  of  God  having  regenerated  the 
world  in  Christ,  and  who  have  thought  themselves  called 
churchmen  to  proclaim  that  fact  and  bear  testimony  to  it  by 
their  lives,  have  been  the  great  instruments  of  good  to  the 
world,  and  if  I  find  that  men — possibly  these  very  men  at  some 
other  period  of  their  lives,  or  at  the  very  same  period — who 
have  acted  on  the  opposite  hypothesis,  who  have  behaved  as 
if  it  was  their  bu.^iiH-ss  to  make  human  beings  something  else 
than  God  has  made  them,  have  produced  all  manner  of  mis- 
chief and  confusion  ;  I  have  a  right  to  say,  that  my  explanation 
is  not  altogether  unreasonable. 

2.  But  Protestants  have  said, — Englishmen  especially  have 
said  with  great  energy  : — The  habit  of  magnifying  the  Church, 
which  Romanists,  and  Greeks  also,  though  not  perhaps  in  an 
eqnal  degree,  have  indulged  in,  has  been  utterly  injurious  to 

*  See  the  Essay  on  "  the  Unity  of  the  Church,"  where  I  have  endea- 
vored more  fully  to  work  out  these  statements,  in  connexion  with  the  doc- 
trine of  an  Indwelling  Spirit,  which  I  have  not  touched  upon  here. 


CIVIL  AND  DOMESTIC  LIFE.  185 

ordinary  morality  and  human  life,  because  the  state  and  civil 
order,  and  ultimately  domestic  order,  have  been  disparaged,  for 
the  sake  of  glorifying  it ;  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  a  certain 
spiritual  or  ideal  life,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  most  truly 
Christian.  Undoubtedly  all  this  has  happened ;  the  complaint 
has  the  best  possible  foundation.  And  why  has  this  been  so  ? 
Because  Romanists  and  Greeks,  whatever  they  have  professed, 
have  not  believed  that  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  regenerate 
all  human  society,  all  the  forms  of  life, — all  civil  order,  all  do- 
mestic relationships; — because  they  have  not  really  confessed 
that,  when  He  took  human  flesh,  and  ate  common  food,  and  sat 
at  the  marriage  feast,  He  declared  these  to  be  connected  with 
Him,  to  have  a  divine,  eternal,  spiritual  basis,  and  not  to  lose 
that  character  because  they  are  connected  with  the  earth  and 
the  body.  A  secret  Manicheism  has  been  infecting  the  practice 
of  the  Church,  while  she  has  denounced  the  heresy  in  terms  ; 
and  that  Manicheism  has  gained  strength  and  must  gain  strength 
every  hour,  till  the  idea  of  a  regenerated  humanity  supersedes 
and  extinguishes  it.  You  may  try  other  expedients,  and  you  will 
try  them  in  vain.  The  office  of  the  magistrate  will  be  scorned  as 
secular,  marriage  will  not  beheld  tobe  honorable  nor  the  bed  un- 
defiled,  till  neither  king,  father,  mother,  wife  nor  child,  are  loved 
more  than-  Christ,  till  all  are  honored  and  loved,  because  He  is 
acknowledged  as  the  bond  of  their  union.  What  then  are  Pro- 
testants doing  to  maintain  that  which  it  is  the  peculiar  glory  of 
Protestantism  to  maintain  wThen  they  deny  the  renewal  and  re- 
generation of  society  in  Christ ;  when  they  insist  that  we  may 
not  claim  for  our  children  the  glory  and  privilege  of  the  new  birth, 
of  being  members  of  Christ;  that  this  is  the  special  distinction 
of  a  few  persons  who  have  been  brought  to  know  that  they 
possess  it  ?  How  can  they  defend  the  honor  of  kingdom  or 
fatherhood,  or  of  conjugal  life,  against  Romanists,  while 
they  surrender  their  true  position  for  so  feeble  a  one  ? 

3.  And  thus  I  am  brought  back  to  Mr.   Combe  and  Jhe 


18G  HOW  TO  SECURE  HONOR  FOR  THEM. 

Physical  Constitution  of  Mas.  "  That  has  been  very  often 
disparaged  by  churchmen ;  the  body  has  been  spoken  of  con- 
temptuously by  them;  health  and  cleanliness  have  been  treated 
as  vulgar  things."  Assuredly  ;  to  our  shame  be  it  spoken  ;  it 
has  been  even  so.  And  why  ?  Because  we  have  forgotten 
that  Christ  took  a  human  body,  and  spent  the  greater  part  of 
His  time  on  earth  in  healing  the  sicknesses  of  it :  because  we 
have  not  confessed  that  the  body  and  the  earth  are  as  much 
redeemed  and  regenerated  by  Him  as  our  spirits,  or  intellec- 
tual powers  ;  because  we  have  not  confessed  the  meaning  and 
power  of  the  Resurrection.  A  man  who  fully  believes  in 
Christ's  Regeneration,  must  regard  every  physical  study  as  a 
sacred  study,  physiology  as  the  most  sacred  of  all ;  must  desire 
that  they  should  be  pursued  manmlly  and  fearlessly,  with  no 
other  check  than  that  which  every  true  student  voluntarily 
submits  to, — the  check  upon  his  own  pride  and  impatience, — 
that  restraint,  which  tends  to  the  highest  freedom,  which  every 
scientific  man  covets,  that  he  may  be  a  true  discoverer  of 
God's  laws,  and  a  benefactor  to  his  brethren.  We  ought  to 
feel  that  all  God's  judgments  by  fever  and  cholera,  are  judg- 
ments for  neglect  of  His  physical  laws,  but  that  they  will  not 
be  obeyed  till  men  obey  His  moral  laws,  by  ceasing  to  live  to 
themselves,  by  feeling  that  it  is  their  business  to  care  for  their 
fellows  and  for  the  earth. 

4.  An  able  and  benevolent  man*  has  complained  that  we 
have  been  talking  and  arguing  about  Baptismal  Regeneration, 
while  our  brethren  of  the  working  classes  are  discussing  the 

*  Since  these  words  were  written,  he  to  whom  they  referred  has  left  a 
blank  in  many  hearts,  and  has  been  taken  from  the  evil  to  come.  The 
sentence  I  alluded  to  occurs  in  a  beautiful  lecture  by  the  Rev.  F.  Robert- 
son, of  Brighton.  If  I  objected  ^o  the  mere  form  of  his  complaint,  it  was 
with  the  full  consciousness  that  he  knew  infinitely  more  about  the  work- 
ing classes  than  I  did,  sympathised  with  them  far  more  deeply,  was 
teaching  them  much  better  the  mystery  of  spiritual  and  social  Regener- 
ate 


THE  WORKING  CLASSES.  1 87 

question,  whether  there  is  a  God.  He  means  to  intimate  that 
we  know  next  to  nothing  of  what  is  going  on  in  their  minds, 
that  we  are  quarrelling  about  our  technicalities,  while  they  are 
occupied  with  first  principles.  I  feel  the  truth  of  much  of 
the  charge,  and  desire  to  take  it  home  to  myself.  There  is  a 
sad  chasm  between  us  and  them ;  the  cause  is  all  too  well  indi- 
cated by  this  remonstrance.  But  I  cannot  admit  that  we  are 
discussing  theological  technicalities,  when  we  are  talking  about 
Regeneration ;  I  believe  we  are  discussing  the  most  radical 
principle  of  human  life.  I  cannot  admit  that  the  working 
classes  are  strangers  to  the  wTord  Regeneration,  or  to  contro- 
versies about  it ;  it  is  one  of  their  favorite  words ;  they  are 
continually  thinking  about  plans  of  social  regeneration.  I  can- 
not believe,  finally,  that  they  will  ever  come  to  the  settlement 
of  that  primary  question,  whether  they  have  a  God  to  believe 
in  and  worship,  till  they  are  taught  whether  He  has  done  any- 
thing, or  is  doing  anything,  for  their  regeneration. 

Our  fault,  I  conceive,  is,  not  that  we  have  spoken  too  much 
on  this  great  subject,  not  that  we  have  been  too  earnest  in 
asserting  that  God  has  regenerated  us,  and  has  given  us  a 
simple  sign  and  pledge  that  He  has  done  so,  but,  that  we  have 
not  made  the  people  understand,  because  we  have  not  under- 
stood ourselves,  that  we  were  needing  such  a  Regeneration  as 
they  want  and  feel  that  they  want, — a  social  as  well  as  an  indi- 
vidual Regeneration.  If  we  did  see  our  way  to  tell  them  this ; 
to  explain  that  we  regard  Christ  as  the  Restorer  of  Humanity 
to  its  true  and  proper  condition ;  as  the  King  of  kings,  and 
Lord  of  lords;  as  the  Head  and  bond  of  a  universal  brother- 
hood ;  as  the  righteous  Judge  and  Punisher  of  all  that  violate 
their  relations  to  each  other,  and  set  up  self  in  opposition  to 
society  ;  I  think  we  might,  in  time,  bring  some  of  them  to  feel 
that  the  Church  was  their  friend  and  deliverer,  not  as  they 
now,  with  great  excuse,  consider  it,  the  bitterest  of  their  foes. 

Let  any  one,  however,  who  shall  determine  to  speak  and  act 


v 


188  INTERESTED  IN  THIS  DOCTRINE. 

on  this  principle  fully  count  the  cost,  and  determine  with  him- 
self whether  he  is  ready  to  incur  it.  Let  him  be  sure  that  he 
must  offend  all  parties,  without  a  single  exception.  He  is  a 
silly  dreamer,  if  he  fancies  that  he  shall  conciliate  High  Church- 
men because  he  defends  Baptismal  Regeneration,  or  Low 
(  hurchmen  because  he  says  that  faith  in  Christ  as  the  .Redeemer 
•  •aerator  is  the  ground  of  all  right  Christian  action, 
lie  must  offend  priests,  monarchs,  nobles,  fur  he  must  tell  them 
they  have  sinned  against  Christ,  who  has  appointed  them  to 
take  care  of  His  sheep.  He  must  offend  those  who  denounce 
priests,  monarchs,  and  nobles,  because  he  recognises  their 
appointment,  and  does  not  conceive  that  the  Church,  being  a 
brotherhood,  is  therefore  a  democracy.  He  will  displease  those 
who  say  that  you  must  reform  the  individual  before  you  reform 
society,  for  he  declares  that  Christ  is  the  Reformer  of  both,  and 
that  the  individual  who  claims  any  relation  to  Him,  must  own 
himself  the  member  of  a  society.  He  must  displease  those 
who  talk  of  reforming  Society,  as  the  only  way  of  reforming 
the  individual,  because  they  understand  by  the  reformation  of 
society,  the  alteration  of  its  circumstances,  not  the  assertion  of 
a  spiritual  root  and  ground  of  it.  He  must  count  upon  the 
hostility  of  those  who  wish  to  keep  things  as  they  are,  and 
who  dread  change  lest  the  whole  social  fabric  should  fall  to 
pieces,  because  he  is  certain  that  it  will  fall  to  pieces,  uni 
Christ,  who  sacrificed  Himself,  is  acknowledged  as  its  foun- 
dation, and  unless  all  maxims  and  practices,  religious,  polit- 
ical, commercial,  which  assume  another  and  contrary  founda- 
tion to  this,  are  abjured  and  cast  aside  as  anti-social, 
immoral,  destructive.  He  must  count  upon  the  active  oppo- 
sition, or  profound  contempt,  of  the  whole  new  school  of  phi- 
losophers and  reformers,  because  their  greeting  to  each  other 
is,  "  Christ  is  not  risen ;"  their  message  to  the  tyrants  and 
wrong-doers  of  the  earth  is,  "  You  need  not  fear  the  wrath  of 
Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  or  of  the  Lamb ;"  their  gos- 


UNITARIAN  POLITICS.  189 

pel  to  the  prisoners  in  Neapolitan  or  Roman  dungeons,  "  The 
deliverer  of  captives  has  not  come ;  it  is  a  figment  of  the  priests 
that  there  is  such  a  one."  Whereas,  his  only  hope  of  that 
which  shall  be,  lies  in  his  acknowledgment  of  that  which  has 
been  and  is.  His  assurance  that  the  bands  of  death  and  hell 
have  been  loosed,  is  his  only  ground  for  confidence  that  they 
will  be  loosed ;  his  certainty  that  Christ  is  the  Judge  of  the 
earth  is  his  only  reason  for  believing  that  it  will  be  one  day 
purged  of  all  its  oppressors  ;  his  trust  that  the  King  has  actu- 
ally been  one  of  the  sufferers,  and  the  chief  of  them,  is  his  war- 
rant for  declaring  that  the  earth  shall  not  cover  the  blood  of 
any  of  her  slain, — that  what  has  been  done  of  good  or  evil  to 
the  least  of. Christ's  brethren,  has  been  done  to  Him. 

I  cannot  tell  what  amount  of  sympathy  has  been  expressed 
by  Unitarians  generally  with  Mr.  Combe's  doctrines,  but  I 
should  imagine  that  one  class  of  Unitarians,  being  sincerely 
philanthropical,  and  more  or  less  strongly  inclined  to  materi- 
alism, must  be  very  favorable  to  them.  I  have  no  arguments 
to  urge  upon  them  in  reference  to  these  doctrines,  besides 
those  which  I  have  addressed  to  my  countrymen  generally. 
Some  of  them,  I  know,  are  admirers  of  Butler,  and  regard  his 
doctrine  of  human  nature  as  a  valuable  counteraction  to  our 
favorite  theological  dogmas, — to  that  especially  which  they 
understand  us  to  associate  with  the  word  Regeneration.  If  I 
have  succeeded  in  showing  that  this  dogma,  interpreted  not 
according  to  some  peculiar  theory  of  mine,  but  in  the  way 
most  consistent  with  the  profession  of  Churchmen,  explains 
Butler's  moral  constitution,  and  proves  that  we  need  not  reject 
it  because  we  do  all  honor  to  Physics,  I  shall  at  least  prepare 
their  minds  (and  this  is  all  I  desire)  for  a  calmer  and  less  pre- 
judiced consideration  of  the  whole  subject. 

As  men  earnestly  interested  in  politics,  I  also  claim  their 
attention.  They  will  see,  I  trust,  that  a  clergyman  may  con- 
cern himself  with  politics,  not  merely  as  they  bear  upon  the 


190  WHIGGISM  ;  ITS  TRUTH. 

interests  of  his  order,  not  merely  as  they  contribute  to  make 
the  office  of  the  priest  more  honored  either  on  civil  or  ecclesi- 
astical grounds.    And  this  not  because  he  thinks  meanly  of  his 
order,  or  entertains  any  theories  about  a  universal  priesthood 
which  interfere  with  the  acknowledgment  of  individual  priests; 
but  because  he  counts  it  a  most  degrading  thing  for  a  priest 
ert  his  powers  instead  of  using  them,  and  beta  use  he 
believes  those  powers  must  be  used  sinfully  and  shamefully,  if 
they  interfere  with  those  which  are  committed  to  any  other 
functionary,  and  if  they  do  not  promote  the  moral  and  civil 
freedom  of  the  community  in  which  they  are  exerted.     The 
elder  Unitarians  are,  I  believe,  commonly  Whigs.     And  so  far 
as  Whiggism  implies  the  recognition  of  a  constitution  for  each 
particular  nation,  the  principles  and  forms  of  which  are  adapted 
to  the  character  and  circumstances  of  its  inhabitants,  and  are 
brought  to  light  through  its  history,  I  heartily  sympathise  with 
them,  and  would  only  suggest  that  in  our  day  we  can  scarcely 
understand  or  defend  such  particular  constitutions,  unless  we 
are  willing  to  inquire  whether  there  is  a  constitution  for  mankind, 
— one  which  does  not  destroy,  as  so  many  universal  constitutions 
that  men  dream  of  do,  but  upholds,  the  order  of  each  country 
and  each  family.     But  if  by  Whiggism  they  mean  merely  a 
compromise  between  the  past  and  the  present,  between  order 
and  freedom,  I  who  hold  that  a  faithful  care  of  the  treasures 
of  the  past  ensures  the  brightest  hopes  for  the  ages  to  come, 
that  there  cannot  be  an  excess  of  order  or  of  freedom, — must 
part  company  with  them  as  wholly  unsatisfactory  teachers, 
from  whom  no  practical  good  can  be  obtained,  and  betake  my- 
self to  some  of  the  younger  men  of  the  sect  who,  I  suppose, 
would  prefer  the  name  of  Radicals. 

That  name,  too,  I  hold  in  sincere  reverence,  and  wish  that  I 
were  worthy  to  claim  it.  I  fear  we  have  none  of  us  been  radi- 
cal enough,  that  we  have  all  been  too  content  with  superficial 
changes,  not  demanding  a  full  and  thorough  reformation.  After 


radicalism;  its  truth.  191 

thinking  with  some  earnestness,  how  that  may  be  attained  for 
us  in  England  and  for  men  everywhere,  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion which  this  Essay  expresses.     I  hinted  at  it  when  I  beg- 
ged the  new  school  of  Unitarians  to  tell  me  plainly  what  kind 
of  a  Church  it  is  which  they  look  for  in  the  future ;  whether  it 
has  anything  to  do  with  that  which  has  existed  in  the  world  for 
eighteen  centuries  ;  whether  He  who  is  declared  in  our  Creeds 
to  be  the  Corner-stone  of  that,  is  also  to  be  the  Corner-stone  of 
this.     I  press  the  inquiry  again,  now  that  I  have  told  them  my 
mind  frankly  upon  it.    I  will  add  this  only  :  that  if  I  accepted 
the  doctrine  of  some  of  those  with  whom  they  are  associated, 
and  whom  they  sometimes  proclaim  to  be  the  heralds  of  a  new 
dispensation  ;  if  I  thought  that  the  world  which  is  to  arise  out 
of  the  wreck  of  that  in  which  we  are  living  were  one  of  which 
some  other  than  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  was  to  be  the 
king  ;   I  should  have  no  more  fervent  wish,  supposing  I  could 
then  form  a  wish, — I  could  conceive  no  better  prayer,  suppos- 
ing there  was  any  one  to  whom  I  could  offer  a  prayer,— than 
that  I  and  my  fellow-men,  and  the  whole  universe,  might  perish 
at  once,  and  for  ever. 


ESSAY    XI. 


ON  THE  ASCENSION  OF  CHRIST, 


It  is  a  favorite  practice  among  some  writers  and  thinkers  of 
our  day,  to  contrast  the  vulgar,  low-minded,  animal  Jew,  with 
the  refined,  imaginative,  spiritual  Greek.  The  comparison  is 
dwelt  on  especially  by  those  who  wish  to  deliver  us  from  what 
we  have  been  used  to  call  the  facts,  from  what  they  call  the 
legends  of  the  New  Testament.  All  these,  they  say,  had  an 
ideal  truth  for  the  old  Greeks,  and  furnished  them  with  the 
hints  of  a  thousand  beautiful  stories.  The  hard,  definite  forms 
in  which  they  have  obtained  currency  throughout  Christen- 
dom, they  owe,  we  are  told,  to  the  intellects  of  a  few  Gali- 
lseans,  below  even  the  average  of  their  countrymen  in  cultiva- 
tion, beyond  them  in  coarseness  and  superstition. 

This  charge  applies  more  or  less  directly  to  all  the  records 
of  our  Lord's  life  in  the  Evangelists  ;  to  all  the  articles  of  the 
Creed  which  I  have  been  considering  in  my  recent  Essays. 
But  it  bears  most  strongly  upon  the  words,  "  He  ascended 
into  heaven,  and  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God  the  Father 
Almighty."   "  Here,"  it  is  said,  "  we  have  a  great  idea  sen- 

(192) 


THE  IGNORANT  GALILEANS.  193 

sualised  and  materialised  Humanity  is  continually  longing 
and  striving  to  ascend  above  itself.  There  is  always  a  myste- 
rious heaven,  which  it  desires  to  reach.  Ever  and  anon  it  feels 
that  it  has  actually  gained  a  vision  of  the  Infinite,  towards 
which  it  aspires.  The  Greeks,  possessing  the  creative  faculty, 
had  various  modes  of  expressing  this  truth.  The  people 
rejoiced  in  the  symbols ;  the  wise  men,  indifferent  to  them, 
perceived  that  which  was  latent  in  them.  The  poor  Jew  could 
think  only  of  an  actual  body  ascending  into  some  actual 
Heaven.  The  Christian  Church,  unable  to  divest  itself  of  the 
same  dry  habit  of  mind,  has  accepted  the  Jewish  dogma.  But 
she  has  felt  the  restraint  which  it  imposes.  The  notion  of  a 
present  Christ  alternates  in  her  teachings  with  that  of  One  who 
has  gone  away.  The  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  has 
represented  and  perpetuated  the  contradiction.  Protestants 
have  tried  to  rid  themselves  of  it.  They  will  not  do  so,"  these 
teachers  continue,  "  till  they  are  content  to  receive  the  kernel 
without  the  shell,  to  take  the  idea  of  the  Ascension,  and  to  cast 
away  the  story  of  it." 

I  have  ventured  already  to  encounter  the  idealists  in  some 
of  their  favorite  positions ;  I  can  have  no  wish  to  shrink  from  a 
fair  examination  of  these.  I  should  be  taking  a  very  strange 
course  if  I  denied  that  the  Galilseans  were  the  most  ignorant 
part  of  a  race  which  wTas  specially  inclined  to  animal  worship, 
which  had  exhibited  that  tendency  throughout  all  its  history. 
The  Scriptures  tell  us  so  ;  as  I  accept  their  testimony,  I  must 
believe  that  it  was  so.  Nor  can  I  make  any  exception  in  favor 
of  the  fishermen,  from  whom  our  Lord  chose  His  Apostles. 
If  I  did,  I  should  contradict  their  own  repeated  statements. 
No  doubt  they  were  immeasurably  less  imaginative  than  the 
Greeks,  very  little  able  to  conceive  of  a  world  beyond  the  range 
of  their  senses,  or  to  people  it  with  bright  forms.  Not  only  had 
they  little  natural  capacity  for  this  kind  of  creation ;  it  was 
restrained  in  them  by  laws,  institutions,  traditions.     They  were 

9 


1  94  TIIEIR  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

told  that  the  Lord  God,  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth,  had 
chosen  their  fathers  to  know  Him,  and  to  spread  abroad  the 
knowledge  of  Him.  They  were  told  that  they  must  not  think 
of  Him  as  being  like  anything  in  heaven,  or  earth,  or  under  the 
earth.  They  had  a  great  hankering  to  do  so.  It  was  very 
hard  to  help  such  thoughts.  What  could  He  be  like  if  He  were 
not  like  some  of  these  things  ?  From  time  to  time  they  were 
ready  to  fancy  Him  like  the  meanest  of  them ;  foreigners  might 
suggest  thut  He  was  like  the  worthiest,  like  a  man  :  they  were 
not  insensible  to  the  suggestion  ;  still  they  clung  to  the  law  of 
their  father 

Were  they  never  to  have  any  knowledge  of  this  Being  except 
what  they  got  from  their  books  and  their  traditions  ?  How 
strange  and  sad  it  was  to  read  the  books,  to  hear  the  tradi- 
tions, if  that  was  the  case  I  For  all  whose  storit-s  were  related 
to  them  had  spoken  of  actually  knowing  His  name  for  them- 
selves, of  taking  refuge  in  Him,  of  delighting  in  Him,  of  find- 
ing Him  a  high  tower  from  the  face  of  their  enemies.  Was  all 
this  changed  ?  Was  IJe  removed  to  an  infinite  distance  from 
them? — He  who  had  seemed  to  promise  that  the  ages  to  come 
should  know  Him  better  than  those  to  whom  He  spoke;  who 
had  encouraged  the  fathers  to  hope  that  they  should  leave  a 
richer  legacy  to  their  children  than  any  that  had  come  to  them, 
and  that  it  would  go  on  increasing  for  their  heirs  ? 

At  times  they  felt  that  this  could  not  be ;  at  times  they 
knew  that  it  could  not  be.  What  times  were  these  ?  Were 
they  hours  of  some  special  freedom  from  their  ordinary  cares 
and  dulness,  when  the  peasant  was  for  an  instant  transfigured 
by  the  sight  of  some  glorious  sunset,  when  the  fisherman 
looked  into  another  world  below  the  lake,  and  heard  voi 
tempting  him  to  come  down  and  behold  its  wonders  ?  No — it 
was  not  then;  it  was  in  hours  of  special  toil,  sickness,  oppres- 
sion ;  it  was  when  the  child  or  the  friend  was  taken  away ;  it 
was  when  sorrow  for  the  past,  doubt  in  the  present,  terror  of 


THE  TEACHER.  195 

the  future,  were  griming  them  fust — it  was  then  that  the  con- 
viction dawned  upon  them,  "  He  still  is;"  "  He  may  be  known 
by  us."  "  We  may  find  in  Him  a  refuge,  even  as  David  or 
Isaiah  did."  And  then  they  perceived  how  it  was  that  He 
must  be  known,  if  the  knowledge  was  to  do  them  any  good, 
to  bring  them  any  comfort ;  that  their  hearts,  not  their  eyes, 
were  crying  out  for  the  living  God ;  that  with  their  hearts 
they  must  perceive  Him,  if  they  were  ever  to  throw  off  their 
burden  and  enter  into  rest. 

It  was  but  for  a  little  while  they  retained  that  confidence 
and  that  clear  understanding :  they  tried,  perhaps,  to  keep 
both  alive,  by  asking  aid  and  instruction  from  some  scribe  or  doc- 
tor of  the  law.  He  might  give  them  words  which  would  sink 
into  their  memories  and  their  hearts,  to  come  up  again  at  some 
other  day — he  might  give  them  rules  which  would  bind  them 
with  heavy  chains,  from  which  afterwards  they  would  struggle 
in  vain  to  break  loose,  because  they  were  rules  for  fitting  them 
to  seek  that  intercourse  into  which  they  must  enter  before 
they  could  be  fit  for  it — or  rules  which  bound  them  to  those 
earthly  things  and  those  shameful  recollections,  from  which 
they  wanted  to  be  set  free. 

But  at  last  there  came  a  Teacher,  not  removed  from  them 
like  the  Rabbis,  a  peasant,  even  as  they  were, — One  who  had 
grown  up  in  their  villages,  and  walked  about  in  their  cities, — 
One  who  went  into  all  companies,  but  who  seemed  to  care 
for  no  society  so  much  as  theirs.  And  He  spoke  to  them  as 
one  having  authority.  He  did  not  tell  them  of  a  God,  who 
had  been  in  other  days,  with  whom  it  was  possible  for  Moses 
and  the  prophets  to  hold  converse.  He  spoke  to  them  of  a 
Father  who  knew  them,  the  fishermen  of  Galilee,  and  whom 
they  might  know.  He  spoke  of  having  come  forth  from  Him. 
He  spoke  of  His  kingdom  as  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  yet 
as  one  in  which  they,  the  meanest  sons  of  earth,  could  dwell, 
the  secrets  of  which  they  might  understand,   the  powers  of 


196  HIS  METHOD. 

which  they  might  exert,  which  they  were  to  assure  their  own 
countrymen  was  at  hand,  the  gates  of  which  they  wrould  ulti- 
mately open  to  the  world.  As  He  interpreted  to  them  the 
nature  of  this  kingdom,  they  more  and  more  felt  that  He  was 
drawing  them  from  a  world  which  they  looked  upon  with  their 
eyes,  into  an  unseen  world  which  another  eye  that  He  was 
opening  must  take  in ;  yet  a  world  which  was  intimately  unit- 
ed to  the  one  they  were  walking  in,  which  gave  the  forms  of 
that  world  a  distinctness  they  had  never  had  before.  When 
He  wielded  the  powers  of  His  kingdom,  they  felt  more  and 
more  that  He  governed  the  secret  heart  of  nature  and  of  man 
— that  spirits  were  subject  to  Him — that  through  them  He 
was  acting  upon  bodies — that  all  His  influences  proceeded 
from  within,  though  at  last  they  left  the  clearest  marks  upon 
that  which  was  visible  and  outward.  It  was  strange  how  they 
re  continually  strivin  inst  this  education,  trying  to  invert 

it.  translating  His  words  and  acts  of  power  into   some   low, 
material,  ineffectual  Hut  it  was  stranger  still  how  His 

teaching  met  all  their  thoughts  and  anticipations,  in  spite  of 
this  opposition  ;  how  natural  it  seemed  to  be,  how  exactly 
framed  and  devised  for  them ;  how  it  harmonized  with  all 
they  had  heard  in  their  Scriptures  of  a  righteous  and  invisible 
God,  who  cared  for  His  creatures,  and  desired  that  they 
should  seek  Him  and  find  Him — how  it  raised  them  atx 
those  animal  inclinations  of  theirs — what  a  new  feeling  of  hu- 
manity it  kindled  in  them!  But  the  Teacher  Himself — what 
was  He  ?  Might  not  He  who  was  leading  them  out  of  all 
visible  idolatry  Himself  become  the  object  of  it  ?  Could  they 
help  regarding  Him  with  such  a  reverence  as  interfered  with 
the  reverence  for  Jehovah  ?     Did  not  the   Phar  continu- 

ally reproach  them  with  this  sin,   and   Him  with  encouraging 
it?     There  was  this  danger.      What  was  He  doing  to  deli 
them    from    it?     When   Simon    Peter    said,  "Thou    art   the 
Christ,  the  Son   of  the  living   God,"  He  said,  "  Blessed    art 


THE  PASSOVER  NIGHT.  197 

thou,  Simon  Bar-jona,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it 
to  thee,  bat  my  Father  in  heaven."  When  Simon  Peter  said, 
"  That  be  far  from  Thee,  Lord,"  that  Thou  shouldst  be  reject- 
ed of  the  chief  priests  and  scribes,  and  be  put  to  death,  He 
said,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  :  thou  savorest  not  the 
things  that  be  of  God,  but  the  things  that  be  of  men."  For  a 
moment  He  was  transfigured  before  them,  and  His  face  be- 
came bright  and  glistening;  then  a  cloud  covered  Him,  and  a 
voice  came  out  of  the  cloud,  <c  This  is  my  beloved  Son;  hear 
Him :"  and  He  began  to  speak  of  His  passion,  and,  He  came 
down  into  the  crowd  about  the  boy  who  had  fits.  Thus  a  sense 
of  inward  glory  belonging  to  Him,  which  spirit  might  appre- 
hend, but  the  eye  could  not,  was  awakened  in  them;  while  they 
saw  Him  crushing  and  humbling  all  that  they  looked  upon,  all 
that  they  could  make  an  excuse  for  idolatry.  And  at  last  the  hu- 
miliation became  complete.  They  saw  Him  in  agony.  The 
Jewish  law  sentenced  Him  as  a  blasphemer.  The  Gentile 
ruler  gave  Him  up  as  an  impostor,  who  pretended  to  the 
crown  and  the  purple.  He  was  not  stoned,  but  crucified. 
Whatever  could  put  contempt  upon  a  Son  of  God,  or  a  King, 
was  poured  upon  Him.  The  night  before  His  passion  He 
spoke  words,  so  St.  John  tells  us,  which  the  Apostles  could 
not  at  all  interpret.  "  For  a  little  while,"  He  said,  "  they 
should  see  Him,  and  then  a  little  while,  and  they  should  not 
see  Him,  because  He  went  to  His  Father."  "  What  is  this," 
they  said  to  themselves,  "  which  He  saith,  a  little  wrhile  ?  We 
cannot  tell  what  He  saith."  And  then  when  He  saw  they 
were  "  desirous  to  ask  Him,"  He  spoke  of  a  day  of  bliss  to 
them,  which  should  succeed  a  night  of  sorrow ;  a  day  when 
they  should  feel  like  the  woman  who  remembers  no  more  the 
anguish  of  travail,  "for  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world." 
That  same  night,  we  are  told,  "  He  took  bread  and  blessed  it, 
and  gave  it  to  His  disciples,  and  said,  Take,  eat,  this  is  my 
body,  wiiich  is  given  for  you  ;"  and  poured  out  wine,  and  said, 


198  PREPARATION  FOR  THE  ASCENSION. 

"  Drink  ye  all  of  this  ;  for  this  is  my  blood,  the  blood  of  the 
New  Testament,  which  is  shed  for  you  and  for  many,  for  the 
remission  of  sins."  What  such  words  signified,  they  knew 
not,  and  could  not  know.  His  body  was  there  ;  within  a  few 
hours  it  was  taken  down  from  the  cross  and  laid  in  a  sepul- 
chre. That  He  would  ever  rise  out  of  it,  they  say,  they  had 
only  the  faintest  dream,  in  spite  of  words  which  encouraged 
the  belief.  But  then,  they  add,  that  when  He  did  rise,  this 
seemed  to  them  the  explanation  of  all  that  He  had  done,  and 
said,  and  been.  They  report  words  which  they  say  they 
heard  of  Him:  "Ought  not  Christ  to  have  suffered  th 
things,  and  to  enter  into  His  glory  ?"  If  there  was  such  a 
Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man,  as  He  had  led  them  to  beli> 
there  was,  then  i*  ied  to  them  strange  and  monstrous  that 

He  should  die,  but  natural  and  reasonable  that  He  should  rise. 
And  soon  they  ted  to  have  felt  it  scarcely  less  natural  and 

necessary  that  lie  should  ascend  to  Him  from  whom  they  be- 
lieved that  He  had  come.  They  relate,  in  a  few  simple  words, 
how  they  arrived  at  that  convietion,  how  He  educated  them 
into  it.  He  appeared  to  them  while  they  were  met  together, 
the  doors  being  shut  for  fear  of  the  Jews.  He  showed  them 
His  hands  and  His  side — He  ate  with  them — He  vanished  out 
of  their  sight — He  breathed  on  them — He  commanded  them 
to  go  and  baptize  all  nations  ;  He  said,  "  All  power  is  given 
unto  Me  in  heaven  and  earth  ;  He  said,  "  Lo  !  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 

I  repeat  their  story.  If  it  sounds  unnatural,  inconsistent, 
grotesque  to  any,  I  certainly  shall  not  make  it  less  so  by  trans- 
lating it  out  of  their  words  into  mine.  But  at  all  events  this 
was  clearly  the  effect  of  what  they  heard  and  saw,  or  fancied 
or  pretended  they  heard  and  saw.  They  felt,  "  This  Lord  of 
ours  is  actually  related  to  us  now  as  He  was  before  He  v 
crucified.  He  is  related  to  His  Father  now  as  He  was  then. 
His  body  is  the  very  body  which  He  had  then.     But  we  are 


RESULT  OF  THE  TEACHING.  199 

not  henceforth  to  see  Him  often  in  that  body.  Our  intercourse 
with  Him  will  not  be  helped  or  hindered  by  the  eye.  It  will 
be,  as  it  has  always  been,  intercourse  with  a  divine  Teacher — 
with  a  Guide  and  Enlightener  of  our  spirits.  It  may  be — 
must  be — immeasurably  more  perfect  than  it  has  been,  because 
He  has  been  Himself  cultivating  and  preparing  us  for  it  so 
long.  But  it  must  be,  as  He  has  always  taught  us  to  expect, 
intercourse  with  Him  as  the  Head  of  a  great  kingdom,  as  the 
Lord  of  men,  as  One  who  has  a  work  for  us  to  do  on  behalf 
of  men1.  It  will  be  real  and  blessed  if  we  enter  into  that  work 
— if  we  do  it  as  those  whom  He  has  called  to  do  it — if  we  do 
not  seek  to  appropriate  Him  to  ourselves,  to  confine  Him  with- 
in our  boundaries — if  we  remember  that  He  is  to  fill  all  things, 
to  bind  earth  and  heaven  in  Himself.  It  must  be — as  he  told 
us  it  would  be — henceforth  awful  intercourse  with  the  Father 
through  Him,  so  that  as  in  Hitn  God  has  stooped  to  us,  in  Him 
we  may  ascend  to  God." 

"  We  may  ascend  to  God  !  Why  that  is  the  ideal  language. 
You  are  now  translating  Hebrew  into  Greek."  If  I  am,  I  am 
doing  what  the  Apostles  did.  Their  minds — the  minds  of  these 
dull  Galileans — were  idealised,  spiritualised.  It  is  what  I  wish 
you  to  observe ;  and  I  wish  you  to  observe  also  the  process  by 
which  this  strange  transformation  was  wrought.  A  person 
whom  they  had  known,  with  whom  they  felt  that  they  were 
inseparably,  eternally  united,  had  gone  out  of  this  world ;  to 
what  place  they  knew  not,  nor  cared  to  know  ;  but  certainly  to 
His  Father,  certainly  to  Him  with  whom  He  had  always  been 
one,  with  whom  He  had  come  to  make  them  one,  whom  He 
had  declared  and  proved  to  be  their  Father,  as  well  as  His 
Father.  It  was  the  great  witness  and  demonstration  to  them 
that  they  were  spirits  having  bodies,  that  they  were  not  bodies 
into  which  a  certain  ethereal  particle,  called  spirit,  was  infused. 
That  which  conversed  with  God  was  not  something  accidental 
to  them,  but  their  substance.    And  this  too  was  that  by  which 


200  THE  EUCHARIST. 

they  held  converse  with  each  other.  Without  this  there  was 
no  possibility  of  their  feeling  together,  suffering  together,  hop- 
ing together.  AVith  this,  it  was  possible  to  feel,  suffer,  hope 
with  all  men,  with  the  whole  universe.  But  was  it  necessary 
to  forget  that  Christ  had  a  body  in  order  that  they  might 
enter  into  this  fellowship  with  his  Father  and  with  His  breth- 
ren ?  If  thoy  did  forget  that,  the  fellowship  would  cease,  and 
their  spirits  would  fall  again  into  their  old  slavery.  For  this 
is  the  pledge  of  their  union  to  him;  His  victory  in  the  body, 
over  the  body,  for  the  body,  is  theirs  also.  They  could  claim 
the  dignity  of  spirits,  because  they  were  one  with  Him  who 
had  redeemed  the  body  and  made  it  spiritual.  They  could 
have  fellowship  with  all  sufferers  in  the  body,  because  He  had 
suffered  and  died,  and  was  the  common  Lord  of  all.  They 
could  rise  to  communion  with  the  Father  of  Spirits,  because 
there  was  One  in  a  body  who  was  His  well-beloved  Son,  and 
who  had  offered  Himself  for  them. 

The  disciples  of  Christ,  having  gained  this  learning,  could 
enter  into  the  force  of  those  words  spoken  at  the  Paschal  sup- 
per, which  had  been  at  first  merely  bewildering.  They  could 
remember  how  at  Capernaum  He  had  spoken  of  his  flesh  being 
meat  indeed,  of  His  blood  being  drink  indeed;  how  He  had 
said  that  His  flesh  would  be  given  for  the  life  of  the  world ; 
how,  when  some  were  offended,  He  said,"  The  spirit  ijaick- 
e?ieth,  thejlesh  profitelh  noticing ;"  and  how  He  had  connected 
these  apparent  contradictions  with  the  question,  "  What  and 
if  ye  shall  see  the  So?i  of  man  ascend  iq)  ivhcre  he  ivas  before?" 
And  now,  as  they  ate  the  bread  and  drank  the  wine,  accord- 
ing to  His  commandment,  they  could  receive  these  tokens  as 
the  surest  pledges  that  they  were  risen  with  Him ;  that  they 
were  in  His  presence  as  much  as  ever  ;  that  they  had  no  life  in 
themselves  ;  that  the  life  of  the  world  was  in  Him  ;  that  His 
flesh  and  blood  were  indeed  the  bond  between  the  creatures 
and  the  Creator,  between  the  creatures  and  each  other. 


SAUL  OF  TARSUS.  201 

You  see,  then,  how  careful  the  Apostles  are  to  impress  us 
with  that  fact  which  wise  men,  who  do  not  in  general  consider 
them  trustworthy  authorities,  are  also  so  anxions  to  impress  us 
with,  that  they  were  very  stupid  people, — on  a  level  with  the 
most  stupid.  Thus  they  show  that  the  great  experiment  of 
what  man  is  and  what  he  is  meant  for,  was  made  in  corpore 
vili  ;  so  that  none  could  say,  "  This  lesson  is  not  for  me  ;  I  can- 
not claim  to  be  a  spiritual  being,  and  to  be  risen  and  ascended 
with  Christ." 

These  Galileans,  not  being  men  of  any  gifts  of  soul,  not 
men  whose  race  or  general  culture  led  them  to  magnify  the 
soul  above  the  body,  yet  came  to  such  an  apprehension  of  the 
spiritual  condition  and  glory  of  man, — to  such  a  practical 
apprehension  of  it, — as  no  sages  in  any  country  had  ever 
reached  ;  I  say  of  Man  ;  for  this  was  necessarily  involved  in 
the  discovery  that  they  were  not  better  than  the  worst  of  their 
countrymen,  and  that  Christ  had  cared  for  the  worst  and  taken 
their  nature.  Though,  as  their  mission  was  to  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  House  of  Israel,  all  they  needed,  generally,  to  proclaim 
was,  that  the  silliest  of  those  sheep, — the  one  who  had  wand- 
ered furthest, — had  an  interest  in  the  sufferings  and  triumphs 
of  the  good  Shepherd. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  a  Jew  of  Tarsus  felt  that  he 
was  called  to  go  forth  and  tell  Greeks  that  they  were  pos- 
sessors of  the  blessings  of  the  children  of  Abraham.  The 
blessings  of  the  children  of  Abraham  !  What  a  message  to 
bring  to  the  most  graceful  and  refined  people  on  the  earth  that 
they  might  share  the  privileges  of  those  whom  they  accounted 
the  most  coarse  and  inhuman  !  To  assure  those  who  believed 
that  they  must  be  meant,  in  one  way  or  other,  to  bear  rule 
over  mankind,  because  they  had  souls  and  the  majority  of  men 
only  an  animal  nature,  that  they  might  become  what  some  of 
the  least  intellectual  of  that  miserable  majority  already  were  ! 
And  yet  this  was  the  proclamation  of  the  Jewish  tent  maker. 

9* 


202  GROUND  OF  A  FELLOWSHIP  FOIl  MEN. 

And  instead  of  its  seeming  to  him  or  to  his  countrymen  a 
message  which  flattered  their  national  pride,  Saul  declared 
that,  until  that  pride  was  crushed  in  him  by  a  revelation  of 
Jesus  the  Son  of  God, — until  he  knew  Him  to  be  indeed  the 
King  of  his  own  spirit,  and  the  risen  and  ascended  King  of 
the  whole  earth,  he  could  not  endure  the  thought  that  the 
Greek  was  cared  for  by  the  God  whom  he  worshipped,  and  was 
a  member  of  the  same  body  with  himself.  When  he  did  with 
his  whole  heart  acknowledge  that  truth,  and  was  convinced 
that  he  had  a  commission  to  declare  it,  Greeks,  who  had  been 
given  up  to  demon-worship,  and  whose  thoughts  of  that  which 
was  divine  had  found  the  most  exquisite  visible  forms  to  clothe 
themselves  in,  turned  with  wonder  and  awe  to  the  invisible 
Lord  whom  the  poor  Syrian  tribe  had  for  centuries  been  con- 
claimed  Ilim  as  the  common  Father  of  them  and  the 
barbarians  ;  owned  that  one  perfect  human  image  of  Ilim  had 
been  manifested,  and  that  all  the  images  which  they  had  formed 
must  be  cast  away  ;  believed  that  a  way  was  opened  into  His 
presence  for  them  and  for  all,  through  the  Mediator,  who  was 
in  their  nature  at  His  right  hand.  On  this  ground  a  church  of 
men,  taken  out  of  all  nations  and  kindreds,  stood;  this  v 
the  bond  of  their  fellowship  ;  this  destroyed  the  divisions  which 
locality,  race,  individual  temperament,  old  traditions,  private 
judgments,  had  established  among  them.  And  when  they 
met,  as  St.  Paul  told  them  they  were  to  meet,  and  kept  that 
feast  which  Christ  had  instituted  the  same  night  that  He  was 
betrayed  ;  they  met  to  have  fellowship  with  a  Lord  who  had 
ascended  in  that  body  which  he  had  offered  up,  and  which 
death  could  not  hold  ;  they  met  in  the  assurance  that  they 
were  risen  with  Him  and  brought  into  his  presence ;  they  met 
to  realize  their  union  with  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and 
earth,  which  was  named  in  Him  the  elder  Brother  of  it; 
they  met  to  give  thanks  in  Him,  to  the  Father  who  had  made 


DISEASES  OF    THE  CHURCH.  203 

them  meet  to  be  partakers  of  an  inheritance  with  the  saints  in 
light. 

But  St.  Paul  discovered  in  each  one  of  these  churches,  ten- 
dencies which  were  threatening  the  existence  of  this  commu- 
nion, and  were  bringing  back  all  Judaism,  all  idolatries,  all 
local  divisions,  the  materialism  of  old  traditions,  the  spiritual 
conceits  of  those  who  had  not  been  taught  to  suspect  them- 
selves and  to  know  that  they  knew  nothing.  He  encountered 
each  of  these  tendencies  as  he  saw  it  rising ;  traced  it  to  its 
source ;  pointed  out  the  habits  that  were  akin  to  it,  and  that 
were  fostering  it.  Among  the  Corinthians  he  discovered  the 
love  of  faction  and  party  leaders,  which  was  so  specially  Greek  ; 
among  the  Galatians,  the  influence  of  teachers  who  persuaded 
them  that  the  Jew  had  still  a  position  higher  and  diviner  than 
that  of  all  other  men,  and  that  they  must  become  Jews  if  they 
were  to  have  God's  favor;  in  the  Colossians,  speculations  about 
angels,  demons,  emanations ;  all  that  constituted  the  philoso- 
phised mythology  of  Orientals  or. Greeks.  There  is  something 
peculiarly  adapted  to  this  last  habit  of  mind  in  the  words 
which  we  find  in  the  third  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colos- 
sians :  u  If  ye  then  be  risen  with  Christ,  seek  those  things  that 
are  above,  where  Christ  sittethon  the  right  hand  of  God?''  He 
wished  to  remind  the  philosophers  who  were  trying  to  scale 
heaven  by  their  theories,  that  they  would  be  baffled,  as  all  the 
giants  of  former  days  had  been.  He  wished  to  show'  them 
that  what  they  called  spirituality  was  not  that  at  all ;  that  it 
was  merely  the  exaltation  of  the  soul  at  the  expense  of  the 
body,  of  the  sage  at  the  expense  of  the  common  man,  and  that 
it  led  by  a  very  direct  road  to  the  degradation  of  Humanity. 
He  wished  them  to  see  how — not  the  soul  or  the  sage — but  the 
man  had  been  exalted  in  the  exaltation  of  Christ ;  how  the 
whole  Body,  and  not  some  of  its  choice  members,  might  claim 
to  be  risen  with  Him  ;  how  impossible  it  was  for  any  one  to 
rise  who  tried  to  rise  by  himself,  or  to  set  himself  in  anywise 


204  RISEN  WITH    CHRIST  J    PALEY. 

apart  from  his  brethren.  But  though  there  is  this  especial 
appropriateness  in  the  words,  they  are  generally  applicable  to 
all  conditions  of  the  Church,  which  St.  Paul  discovered  then, 
or  which  he  expected  might  exist  hereafter.  They  point  out, 
I  think,  what  would  be  the  source  of  various  diseases,  and 
what  would  be  the  one  remedy  for  them. 

When  we  hear  the  words,  "  If  ye  be  risen  ivith  Christ"  our 
first  inclination  is  probably  to  say,  "  It  is  not  an  actual  rising, 
of  course,  which  he  means  ;  the  language  is  metaphorical.  We 
are  to  rise,  as  one  of  the  collects  cxpr  it,   in  heart  and 

mind."  Now  Paley,  who  had  a  broad,  simple,  English  nature, 
who  was  a  utilitarian  by  profession,  and  who  had  as  little  ten- 
dency to  mysticism  as  any  one  who  ever  lived,  was  struck 
especially  by  the  businesslike  quality  of  St.  Paul's  mind.  You 
may  say,  Paley  was  an  advocate,  he  held  a  brief  for  St.  Paul. 
No  doubt;  but  he  need  not  have  chosen  that  peculiar  merit 
for  his  panegyric  ;  there  were  a  thousand  stereotyped  common 
places  about  devotion,  intrepidity,  self-sacrifice,  which  would 
have  done  as  well,  lie  would  certainly  have  resorted  to  them, 
and  not  to  this  phrase,  if  he  had  thought  Paul  was  in  the  habit 
of  using  metaphors  when  he  was  writing  on  grave  practical 
topics.  No  man  of  business  would  do  that,  and  therefore 
Paley,  whatever  construction  he  might  have  put  on,  or  have 
abstained  from  putting  on,  such  passages  as  these,  which  are 
so  familiar  to  every  reader  of  St.  Paul,  so  characteristic  of  his 

le  and  of  the  man,  certainly  must  have  concluded  that  they 
were  not  pieces  of  fine  writing,  not  flourishes  of  rhetoric  ;  that 
they  were  unlike  those  expressions  of  poets  or  philosophic 
which  are  far  from  being  unmeaning  or  nonsensical,  but  which 
he  would  have  deemed  so,  about  the  wings  of  Psyche,  or  the 

tent  of  the  divine  in  man  into  its  native  element.  Our  Arch- 
deacon must  have  perceived,  with  his  shrewd  northern  com- 
mon sense,  that  St.  Paul,  though  very  unlike  him  in  most 
respects,  was  just  as  substantial  as  he  was,  just  as  little  of  a 


THE  FANTASTIC  AN!)  SUBSTANTIAL.  205 

dreamer   or   a    sentimentalist  ;    that  there  was   a  connexion 
between  what  he  said  of  spirit  and  "  business." 

It  is  precisely  this  connexion  which  I  have  been  endeavoring 
to  trace,  and  which  marks  out  St.  Paul  as  "  a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews."  The  Teacher  whom  the  other  Apostles  had  known 
after  the  flesh,  trained  him,  by  discipline  not  less  regular,  mys- 
terious, and  severe  than  theirs,  to  know  that  the  spirit  is  the 
substantial  part  of  man ;  that  he  is,  because  he  is  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  who  is  a  Spirit;  that  he  is  in  a  fallen,  anoma- 
lous condition,  when  the  senses  which  connect  him  with  the 
earth  are  his  rulers,  and  he  judges  what  he  is  from  them ;  that 
he  is  in  a  restored,  risen,  regenerate  condition,  when  he  is  able 
to  assert  his  glory  as  a  spiritual  being  by  asserting  his  relation 
to  God.  Believing,  therefore,  that  God  had  regenerated  and 
restored  Humanity  in  Christ,  that  He  had  called  men  to  claim 
their  relation  to  the  Father  through  the  Son,  he  could  say 
boldly,  "  You  are  risen  with  Christ."  "  It  is  not  a  metaphor 
or  fancy  that  you  are  ;  you  will  be  always  in  a  region  of  meta- 
phors and  fancies,  always  shaping  some  dream  of  a  nobler  life 
out  of  the  coarse  material  of  your  earthly  existence,  until  you 
take  up  this  position.  Then  all  becomes  simple  and  real. 
There  is  no  more  a  straining  after  some  high  ideal ;  the  most 
quiet,  reasonable  life  you  can  lead  is  that  of  creatures  who  are 
raised  into  union  and  fellowship  with  a  higher  nature ;  who 
are  continually  looking  up  to  Him,  in  weakness  and  depend- 
ence leaning  upon  Him,  confident  that  He  can  lift  you,  and  is 
lifting  you,  above  all  the  things  which  He  has  put  in  subjection 
to  you,  and  is  giving  you  the  power  to  use  them  as  your  minis- 
ters, and  to  consecrate  them  to  Him.  x\nd  because  you  know7 
how  these  things  have  corrupted  you,  and  enslaved  you,  and 
become  your  idols,  therefore  as  risen  creatures,  as  regenerate 
sons  of  God,  seek  the  things  that  are  above,  whore  Christ 
sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  Claim  your  portion  in  the 
eternal  Truth,  and  Love,  and  Righteousness,  which  He  has 


206  THE  FLESH  AND  BLOOD. 

manifested  to  you,  and  of  which  he  lias  made  you  heirs;  have 
done  with  all  earth-born  phantoms,  superstitions,  conceits, 
fears.  They  will  cling  about  you,  as  all  grovelling  lusts  and 
filthy  imaginations  will  likewise.  But  give  entertainment  nei- 
ther to  one  nor  to  the  other.  You  can  disengage  yeursel 
from  them.  For  you  are  members  of  Christ's  body,  and  Christ 
is  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  And  if  you  say, '  But  the  earthly 
attraction  is  too  mighty,  and  the  sense  of  past  evil  and  slavery 
recurs  continually,  and  the  moment  we  seem  to  rise  we  are 
fallen  again,  and  when  w<  :  to  be  united  to  our  brethren, 

then  come  in  all  low,  petty  thoughts  about  ourselves;  and 
when  we  want  to  rule  the  world  for  God,  the  world  gets  the 
mastery,  and  rules  us  for  the  Devil;'  then,  I  say,  remember 
the  words,  '  My  jfcslt  is  meat  indeed,  my  blood  is  drink  indeed.1 
Be  assured  that  He  who  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God  is  not 
merely  a  spiritual  being  separated  from  you;  He  is  in  your 
nature,  He  has  taken  your  flesh.  He  has  redeemed  it,  glori- 
fied it !  Come,  then,  brother  man,  not  as  a  fine,  dainty,  selfish 
epicure,  to  seek  some  special  and  solitary  blessings  for  your- 
self; but  come  as  one  of  a  family,  to  seize  a  common  food 
which  is  given  to  all,  a  sacrifice  which  has  been  offered  for  all. 
Come,  and  eat  it  in  haste,  with  your  shoes  on  your  feet  and 
your  staff  in  your  hand,  as  a  man  who  has  a  journey  before 
him  and  work  in  hand,  as  a  pilgrim,  not  as  a  philosopher.    But 

tin  :  eat  it,  all  of  you,  as  risen  men,  as  spiritual  creatures  ; 
not  as  those  who  are  peeping  into  the  ground  and  muttering,  to 
ask  the  aid  of  some  familiar  spirit ;  not  as  those  who  come  with 
cowardly  prostration  before  a  daemon  whose  favor  they  are 
bribing ;  but  as  those  who  have  their  habitation  and  their 
polity  with  Christ,  their  Representative  and  Intercessor." 

If  the  Greeks,  with  their  high  spirituality,  had  anything  to 
produce  which  was  more  spiritual  than  this, — if,  with  their 
Humanity,  they  had  anything  which  was  more  human, — it  is  a 
pity  they  did  not  bring  it  forth  in  those  three  centuries  when 


MIRACLES  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES.         207 

they  were  struggling,  with  every  possible  advantage,  against 
the  Christian  Church.  But  I  think  the  more  we  look  into  the 
history  of  that  Church  in  those  centuries,  and  in  all  that  have 
succeeded  them,  the  more  we  shall  perceive  that  it  has  become 
earthly,  debused,  superstitious,  inhuman,  just  in  proportion  as 
it  has  lost  hold  of  this  truth  of  Christ's  actual  ascension,  just 
in  proportion  as  it  has  substituted  a  mere  symbolical  or  ideal 
ascension  for  that,  just  in  proportion  as  the  Greek  notion  of 
men  rising  and  ascending  by  dint  of  high  gifts  of  soul  into 
gods,  has  superseded  the  notion  of  the  fishermen  and  the  tent- 
maker,  that  they  and  the  humblest  men  are  risen  with  Christ, 
and  may  therefore  seek  those  things  that  are  above. 

My  readers  will  perceive  at  once  that  this  is  a  natural  and 
direct  inference  from  the  doctrine  I  maintained  in  my  last 
Essay.  I  showed  then  how  many  of  the  mischiefs  and  abomi- 
nations which  had  tormented  the  Church,  and  made  her  the 
oppressor  of  mankind,  arose  from  her  disbelief  in  Christ  as  the 
Regenerator  of  man.  There  are  some  special  applications  of 
this  statement  which  belong  to  the  subject  I  am  now  con- 
sidering. 

The  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Christ  having  been  taken 
by  a  great  portion  of  the  Church  as  merely  extraordinary, 
anomalous  events, — not  as  events  which  could  not  have  been 
otherwise,  which  exhibit  eternal  laws,  which  vindicate  the 
true  order  and  constitution  of  human  existence, — while  at  the 
same  time  there  has  been  an  assurance  that  they  were  neces- 
sary to  men,  and  that  they  must  in  some  way  be  pattern  events, 
examples  of  that  which  men  were  to  be  and  to  do, — a  series  of 
acts,  attesting  the  power  of  spirit  over  body,  the  capacity  of 
men  to  overcome  the  powers  of  nature,  the  possibility  of  rising 
into  communion  with  the  infinite,  has  been  imagined.  These 
have  been  considered  strange  exceptions  in  the  order  of  the 
world ;  and  being  such,  the  whole  inventive  power  of  the 
human  spirit  has  been  employed  in  decking  them  out  and  con 


208  HATERS  OF  SCIENCE  AND  ART. 

necting  them  with  the  life  of  some  favorite  saint  or  hero.  By 
degrees  it  has  been  discovered  that  a  number  of  these  triumphs 
may  be  referred  to  ordinary  principles  and  laws,  which  govern 
the  human  frame  and  the  course  of  nature — that  other  portions 
of  the  stories  are  traceable  to  mistake,  confused  reporting,  or 
direct  fraud.  Still  not  merely  the  affections  of  men,  but  their 
consciences,  have  clung  to  these  instances  of  an  actual  con- 
nexion between  the  spiritual  and  the  external  world,  and  of 
the  dominion  of  the  first  over  the  second.  In  vain  you  produce 
the  clearest  evidences  of  imposture — iu  vain  you  talk  of  natural 
The  heart  of  man  says,  "  Here  are  signs  of  a  faith 
which  was  not  false,  but  true — here  are  tokens  of  that  which 

iot  natural,  but  supernatural."  And  now  a  new  change 
evidently  taking  place.  Science  itself  is  becoming  dynamical 
rather  than  mechanical;  powers  and  agencies  are  discovered 
in  nature  itself,  not  less  mysterious  than  those  which  miracle- 
workers  spoke  of.  Man  is  able,  through  science,  to  exer< 
such  powers  as  seem  to  attest  the  dominion  of  spirit  over 
nature  more  completely  than  any  signs  they  wrought  The 
victories  of  the  old  artist  over  the  marble,  the  mysterious 
energy  by  which  he  compelled  it  to  express  the  thoughts  and 
emotions  of  living  beings,  are  leading  many  whom  these  facts 
do  not  impress,  in  the  same  direction  ;  the  legends  of  Greece 
are  received  as  striking  commentaries  on  the  powers  of  her 
s.-ulptors  and  poets.  The  Romish  priests,  as  teachers  of  youth, 
see  that  a  movement  is  going  on  very  like  that  which  the  popes 
rashly  encouraged  at  the  revival  of  letters.  Some  of  them  cry 
out  that  it  must  be  checked.  "  Let  us  have  as  little  science  as 
we  can.  The  old  notions  about  the  sun  are  safer  than  the 
new.  They  must  be  restored  if  possible.  Let  us  banish  the 
classics  from  our  schools.  The  Greek  legends  are  corrupting 
our  youth.  They  and  profane  art  must  be  proscribed."  It 
impossible  not  to  see  that  many  in  Protestant  England,  who 
hate  these  priests  on  other  grounds,  would  be  ready  to  join 


SUCH  FEELINGS  SHAMEFUL  IN  US.  209 

them  in  their  prohibitions.  There  are  those  among  us  who 
think  that  the  facts  of  science,  unless  they  are  well  sifted  and 
sorted  by  religious  men,  and  mixed  with  religious  maxims,  are 
likely  to  disturb  the  faith  of  the  people,  and  that  the  beautiful 
forms  of  Greek  sculpture,  especially  if  they  are  not  clothed, 
and  made  unnatural,  must  corrupt  their  morals.  I  shudder  at 
these  notions,  but  I  do  not  wonder  at  them.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  Romish  protesters  are  wise  in  their  generation.  If 
their  disciples  are  to  learn  fictions,  it  is  better  they  should  not 
be  able  to  compare  them  with  facts  ;  it  is  not  well  that  they 
should  know  how  many  of  their  stories  are  borrowed  from 
Pagan  sources,  and  how  much  less  pure  the  copies  are  than 
the  originals.  On  higher  grounds  they  may  be  right  in  think- 
ing that  those  who  are  not  allowed  to  read  the  Scriptures  in 
their  simplicity  and  breadth,  have  no  standard  for  judging  of 
what  is  good  and  evil  in  other  literature,  and  had  better  be 
kept  from  it  altogether.  The  existence  of  such  feelings  amongst 
us  is  far  less  excusable.  Our  education  in  the  Bible  ought  to 
have  taught  us  to  believe  in  a  God  of  Truth — to  reverence 
facts,  because  they  must  be  His  facts — to  long  that  laws 
should  be  discovered  because  they  are  His — to  fear  nothing 
but  what  is  false,  that  being  certainly  of  the  Devil.  Our  Bible 
culture  ought  to  have  made  us  understand  that  nothing  is 
impure  save  the  corrupt  and  darkened  conscience  and  will,  and 
that  that  may  convert  all  things,  even  the  holy  words  of  inspira- 
tion, into  its  own  nature.  The  breadth,  simplicity,  nakedness 
of  the  Scripture  language  should  have  taught  us  to  dread  what 
is  disguised  and  dressed  up  for  the  purpose  of  concealment  as 
immoral  and  dangerous — to  regard  the  study  of  forms  as  they 
came  from  the  divine  hand,  with  the  beauty  which  He  has 
impressed  upon  them,  as  safe  and  elevating.  Such  has  been 
the  effect  of  the  Bible  upon  the  daughters  of  England  ;  if  her 
sons  manifest  it  less,  the  Greek  legends  are  not  to  blame. 
Those,  like  Milton,  who  have  been  most  deeply  penetrated  by 


210  HOW  OUR  EDUCATION    HAS  FAILED. 

the  meaning  of  these,  if  their  minds  have  had  a  sound  Hebrew 
root,  have  been  the  purest  and  the  bravest.  I  do  not  believe 
any  single  man  of  us  can  look  back  and  say,  "  It  was  this  cul- 
ture, or  my  diligence  in  seeking  it,  which  has  done  me  injury." 
It  was  a  want  of  zeal  and  sincerity  somewhere  else.  It  was 
that  the  words  the  boy  heard  in  church,  or  was  compelled  to 
learn,  about  the  religion  of  his  countrymen,  did  not  present 
themselves  to  him  as  connected  with  those  which  he  was  read- 
ing in  his  Greek  or  Latin  form.  One  did  not  illustrate  the 
other;  they  seemed  to  be  mere  contradictions,  intended  for 
different  creatures.  If  the  heart  acknowledged  a  fellowship 
and  sympathy  with  the  one,  it  seemed  as  if  the  other  was 
frowning  disapprobation.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  the 
Creed,  and  Catechism,  were  taken  to  be  setting  forth  a  theory 
about  God.  The  Greek  world  was  human.  And  what  had 
the  human  and  divine  to  do  with  each  other?  Yes  ! — let  the 
words  be  rung  in  the  ears  of  our  divines  till  they  have  taken  in 
the  full  force  of  them — our  youths  ask,  What  have  the  Divine 
and  human  to  do  with  each  other?  in  a  country  which  recer 
as  the  cardinal  tenet  of  its  theology,  that  Jesus  Christ  is  very 

d  and  very  Man. 

"  We  accept  that  tenet  certainly  in  a  sense."  Fes,  and.  in 
the  name  of  my  countrymen,  of  our  faith,  and  of  God,  I  do- 
maud  in  what  sense?  Is  it  a  veal  sense,  is  it  a  fundamental 
sense  ?  Is  it  one  which  explains  the  facts  of  Humanity,  or 
leaves  them  unexplained  ?  Because  if  it  is,  be  assured  people 
will  get  their  explanation  elsewhere.  The  Greek  legends,  all 
feeble  as  they  are  because  they  interpret  God  by  human  meas- 
ures and  do  not  bring  men  to  a  divine  measure,  will  yet  be 
preferred  to  a  mere  doctrine  which  puts  God  at  an  infinite  dis- 
tance from  man,  and  makes  Him  an  object  of  dread  not  of 
confidence  to  the  creatures  who  are  declared  to  be  formed 
in  His  image  and  who  are  craving  for  the  knowledge  of  Him. 
These  thoughts  must  press  heavily  on  the  heart  of  every 


CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  211 

one  who  studies  the  condition  of  England, — especially  of  her 
young  men, — at  this  time.  The  struggle  between  the  tenden- 
cies which  incline  them  to  regard  Christianity  as  utterly  hope- 
less,— as  convicted  of  incapacity  for  giving  any  relief  to  the 
efforts  of  human  beings  after  a  higher  state,  and  to  accept  a 
Christianity  which  guarantees  the  salvation  of  their  souls  if 
they  will  abjure  all  such  efforts,  and  surrender  to  a  system  that 
which  their  consciences  tell  them  they  can  only  surrender  to 
God, — this  struggle  is  more  tremendous  than  any  of  us  know. 
Their  English  hearts  solemnly  protest  against  either  alterna- 
tive ;  but  it  is  impossible  for  men,  whose  minds  are  awake,  to 
live  in  a  perpetual  see-saw ;  nothing,  they  feel,  is  less  English, 
less  manly,  than  such  a  position.  What  evil  may  not  be  await- 
ing us,  if  all  the  sounds  which  reach  such  perturbed  spirits  are 
loud  ravings  against  Rationalism  and  Romanism,  while  nothing 
is  offered  them  but  what  looks  less  sincere  and  hopeful  than 
either!  But  oh  !  what  good,  beyond  anything  I  can  think  of 
or  dream,  may  God  be  preparing  for  us  through  this  conflict ! 
What  a  day  of  joy  may  succeed  a  night  of  travail,  if  the  mes- 
sage is  indeed  brought  to  us,  "  The  Man  is  born  into  the 
world  !"  And  is  not  this  the  message  which  is  contained  in 
the  old  story  of  Christ's  ascension  to  the  right  hand  of  God,  if 
we  take  that  story  not  as  a  legend,  but  as  the  fulfilment  of  all 
legends ;  not  as  an  idea,  but  as  the  substantiation  of  an  idea 
in  a  fact  ?  With  what  delight  might  we  then  trace  the  unfold- 
ing mysteries  of  science,  believing  that  each  new  fact  is  reveal- 
ing some  step  in  an  ascending  scale  of  creatures,  the  lowest  of 
which  is  an  object  of  creating  and  redeeming  love,  the  highest 
of  which  is  in  communion  with  the  Son  of  God  !  How  the 
triumphs  of  art  would  then  be  felt  as  witnesses  for  the  subjec- 
tion of  all  things  to  man,  a  subjection  accomplished  in  Him 
who  lias  gone  through  death  and  has  ascended  to  His  Father ! 
What  joyful  testimony  would  every  mythological  story  then 
bring  in,  not  to  the  wishes  and  aspirations  of  men  only,  but  to 


212  THE  EUCHARIST. 

God's  satisfaction  of  them  !  "Why  may  not  the  countrymen  of 
Bacon,  and  Shakspeare,  and  Milton,  aspire  thus  to  declare  to 
all  mankind,  tb  lificancy  of  science    and  art,  the  essential 

and  practical  connexion  of  earth  with  heaven,  of  the  human 
and  the  divine  ? 

But  they  have  still  a  higher  work  to  accomplish,  which 
perhaps  must  precede  the  other.  I  have  alluded  more  than 
once  in  this  Essay  to  that  feast  which  the  Galilean  fishermen 
were  told  to  keep  when  they  sat  at  the  Paschal  supper ;  which 
St.  Paul  said  that  he  was  commanded  to  perpetuate  in  the 
churches  which  were  gathered  by  the  preaching  of  his  gospel 
from  the  different  tribes  of  men.  For  eighteen  centuries  Chris- 
tendom has  kept  this  feast ;  there  has  been  no  other  like  it  in 
the  world.  It  has  spoken  of  the  union  of  rich  and  poor,  of  men 
of  all  races,  kindreds,  educations,  opinions,  with  each  other, 
and  with  a  divine  Loyl  who  bad  died  for  them.  All  the  sec- 
tions of  Christendom  have  kept  up  some  form  of  it,  save  the 
Quakers,and  they  affirm  that  they  keep  it  in  a  higher  sense. 
All  the  sections  of  Christendom  have  made  it  the  symbol  of 
their  separation  from  the  rest.  That  which  was  to  unite  all 
men,  of  every  kind  and  degree  of  intellect,  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  the  most  subtle,  intellectual  distinctions.  That  which 
was  to  deliver  men  from  the  bondage  of  sense,  has  been  made 
the  minister  of  the  senses.  The  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation 
has  gathered  up  all  idealism  and  all  materialism  into  itself,  is 
a  compendious  expression  of  all  the  contradictions  in  the  hearts 
and  understandings  of  human  beings.  Set  what  hold  it  seems 
to  have  upon  those  hearts  !  How  it  defies  the  skill  of  Protes- 
tant divines,  the  wit  of  Protestant  scoffers  !  How  it  mixes 
itself,  unconsciously,  with  their  theories!  How  mightily  it  has 
stood  its  ground  against  all  notions  that  the  bread  and  wine 
were  but  the  memorials  of  an  absent  Lord,  or  that  the  believer 
created  a  Presence  which,  but  for  His  faith,  would  not  be  ! 
How  it  is  strengthened  by  all  Quaker  experiments  to  make 


ENGLISH  PUZZLES  CONCERNING  IT.  213 

spiritual  feelings  and  notions,  which  appertain  to  the  few, — the 
expression  of  which  is  intelligible  to  still  fewer,  the  media  of 
intercourse,  instead  of  those  symbols  which  speak  of  food  and 
life  for  mankind  !  My  dear  countrymen  are  puzzled  by  all 
these  observations  which  their  experience  forces  on  them.  They 
are  impatient  of  theories,  unskillful  in  forming  them.  Yet  it 
seems  to  them  as  if  they  must  have  a  theory,  either  compoun- 
ded of  all  theories  that  have  ever  existed,  or  the  negation  of 
all : — some  grains  of  Paschasius,  a  few  globules  of  Luther,  an 
infusion  of  Zwingle,  shaken  together,  and  plentifully  diluted 
with  the  aqua  pura  of  George  Fox.  Then  tired  of  a  mixture, 
which  must  be  either  tasteless  or  nauseous,  this  man  plunges 
into  Romanism ;  that  exchanges  sacraments  for  some  tran- 
scendental exposition  of  them  ;  another  who  discovers  the 
flimsiness  of  the  exposition,  flies  to  the  open  worship  of  Mam- 
mon, to  his  sacraments,  in  which* the  outward  sign  and  the 
thing  signified  are  so  perfectly  consubstantiated.  Oh,  breth- 
ren !  must  we,  being  such  blockheads,  as  our  German  and 
Gallic  brethren  consider  us,  and  as  we  know  ourselves  to  be, 
in  all  metaphysical  conceptions,  always  try  to  rival  them  ?  Is 
it  not  possible  God  may  have  some  other  work  for  us,  not  so 
satisfactory  to  our  pride,  but  on  the  whole,  if  we  perform  it 
faithfully,  not  less  serviceable  to  mankind,  or  less  to  His  glory  ? 
Has  it  struck  you  that  we  are  not  merely  countrymen  of  Bacon, 
Shakspeare,  or  Milton,  but  also  of  some  millions  of  men,  living 
on  oHir  own  soil  and  in  our  own  day,  speaking  our  tongue,  who 
work  with  their  hands,  and  who  have,  besides  those  hands, 
senses  which  converse  with  this  earth,  sympathies  that  should 
unite  them  to  each  other,  spirits  that  might  hold  converse  with 
God  ?  I  do  not  know  that  they  want  theories  about  transub- 
stantiation  or  consubstantiation,  Romanist  dogmas  or  tran- 
scendental dogmas,  Le  Maistre  or  Schelling.  But  I  do  know 
that  they  want  occupation  for  these  senses,  these  hearts,  these 
spirits.    And  I  do  know  that  you  can,  if  you  will,  say  to  them, 


214  HOME  ;    OtJB  COLONIES. 

one  and  all,  "  Brothers,  here  are  the  pledges  that  we  have  a 
great  Elder  Brother,  who  was  a  suffering  peasant  here  on 
earth,  who  died  and  rose  again,  and  who  is  at  the  right  hand 
of  God.  These  tell  us  that  we  are  one  with  Him  where  He  is. 
We  need  not  ascend  into  Heaven  to  bring  Him  down  ;  we  need 
not  go  down  into  the  deep  to  bring  Him  up  again.  You  may 
hold  converse  with  Him  where  He  is.  He  has  proved  you  to 
be  spirits.  He  has  given  you  this  bread  and  this  wine,  th 
common  things  which  belong  to  us  all  alike,  that  we  may  claim 
a  participation  in  that  body  and  that  blood  which  were  as  real 
as  yours,  which  were  given  for  you,  raised  from  death  for  you, 
glorified  at  God's  right  hand  for  you.  Take,  eat ;  receive  this 
New  Testament  in  His  blood.  Confess  your  selfishness,  your 
divisions,  your  heart-burnings.  Claim  the  unity  which  belongs 
to  you.  Go  your  ways  ;  work  like  men  ;  till  the  earth,  and 
subdue  it  for  God;  make  it  bring  forth  corn  for  the  sower, 
bread  for  the  eater.  In  due  time  it  will  be  all  God  wants  it 
to  be.  Meantime  you  have  a  city  that  hath  foundations  ;  a 
house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens." 

And  there  is  something  besides  which  perhaps  we  have  for- 
gotten. Though  it  has  not  pleased  God  to  make  us  clever  in 
building  systems,  He  has  seen  fit  to  bestow  on  us  an  empire 
on  which  the  sun  does  not  set.  He  has  committed  to  our  care 
some  hundreds  of  millions  of  human  beings,  who  have  certainly 
the  same  flesh  and  blood  with  us,  and  who  show  by  the  .-tninge 
speculations  which  their  sages  (often  rich  in  the  gifts  we  are 
deficient  in)  express  in  w?ords,  and  which  are  for  the  people 
embodied  in  acts,  that  they  are  spiritual  beings,  and  that  they 
know  they  are.  Most  of  our  civil  and  military  servants, 
though  they  have  done  some  parts  of  their  business  admirably, 
and  have  taught  these  people  to  believe  that  there  is  truth  and 
justice  among  men, — alas  !  they  have  often  doubted  and  denied 
their  own  position, — have  felt  that  with  this  part  of  their  mind, 


THE  HEATHEN  WORLD.  215 

though  the  most  radical,  though  affecting  their  whole  exist- 
ence, they  could  not  meddle.  Missionaries  have  gone  forth 
with  the  noblest  aims ;  not  seldom  they  have  effected  blessed 
results.  Yet  the  officials  say,  nay,  many  of  them  say  them- 
selves, that  the  majority  of  the  natives  have  only  derived  from 
their  presence  a  vague  impression,  that  all  they  had  held  them- 
selves is  false ;  and  that  we  could  offer  them  in  exchange  the 
choice  of  some  twenty  different  religions,  manufactured  in 
Europe,  and  belonging  to  white  men.  Suppose  we  could  go 
to  them  and  say,  "  There  is  an  Advocate  and  Intercessor,  not 
for  Europeans,  but  for  men,  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  And 
here  are  the  witnesses  that  you  as  men,  having  flesh  and  blood, 
and  being,  as  you  know,  spiritual  creatures,  are  one  with  Him, 
sharers  of  His  nature,  and,  therefore,  children  of  God,  fellow- 
heirs,  with  all  men  everywhere,  of  His  kingdom," — does  it  not 
seem  possible  that  the  animal  and  the  human  sacrifice,  the  fear- 
fill  invocation  to  Kali,  the  prayer-machine  of  the  Buddhist, 
might  disappear  more  quickly,  than  while  we  merely  argue 
with  them  for  opinions  respecting  which  we  are  divided  as 
well  as  they  ? 

These  are  thoughts  which  I  have  addressed  specially  to 
English  Churchmen,  who,  if  they  heeded  them,  might,  perhaps, 
in  due  time,  first  bring  the  sects  in  their  own  land  to  meet  them 
in  a  common  sacrifice  and  a  common  Lord ;  secondly,  might 
reconcile  Protestants  and  Romanists  abroad,  instead  of  hover- 
ing uneasily  between  them,  or  showing  a  contempt,  which  is 
amply  returned,  towards  both. 

I  now  lay  these  same  thoughts  before  my  Unitarian  breth- 
ren, of  both  sections.  "What  I  have  said  of  Paley,  may  show 
those  whom  the  younger  school  stigmatise  as  materialist  or 
utilitarian,  that  I  do  not  feel  separated  from  them ;  that  I  do 
not  think  it  is  needful  for  them  to  go  through  an  initiation  in 
any  German  or  American  school,  before  they  can  understand 


216  MATERIALISTS  AND  SPIRITUALISTS. 

St.  Paul  or  St.  John.  Good  manly  sense  seems  to  me  so  pre- 
cious and  noble  a  gift,  that  I  am  afraid  I  often  speak  intoler- 
antly of  those  who  put  spiritualism  and  philosophy  in  place  of 
it.  But  I  have  no  right  to  do  so,  for  I  have  felt  that  tempta- 
tion strongly ;  and  if  I  have  felt  also  the  punishment  for  having 
indulged  it,  and  the  reaction  against  it,  I  should  be  the  last  to 
cast  stones  at  any  offender.  Most  earnestly,  therefore,  do  I 
call  upon  all  of  the  spiritual  school  to  join  with  those  from 
whom  they  are  in  part  alienated,  and  with  me,  in  believing  that 
there  is  One  ascended  on  high,  and  on  the  right  hand  of  God, 
who  is  our  Mediator  and  theirs;  who  claims  us  as  spirits  now, 
and  can  change  the  body  of  our  humiliation  to  the  body  of 
His  glory,  by  that  power  whereby  He  is  able  to  subdue  even 
all  things  to  Himself. 


ESSAY   XII. 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY. 


There  is  no  question  which  exercises  the  minds  of  moralists 
and  politicians  so  much  as  the  question  of  responsibility.  How 
are  you  to  make  ministers  of  state,  legislators,  judges,  respon- 
sible ?  To  whom  are  the  highest  officers  in  every  state  respon- 
sible ?  Are  they  to  be  practically  ruled  by  those  whom  they 
profess  to  rule  ?  Is  the  sovereign  a  sovereign  only  in  name  ? 
Is  the  ultimate  authority  vested  in  those  who,  by  a  fiction,  are 
called  his  subjects  ?  Or  is  he  governed  only  by  some  code 
written  in  letters  which  he  has  himself  the  power  of  interpret- 
ing, with  which  he  may  even  at  times  dispense  ?  Or  is  he  an 
autocrat,  whose  own  will  is  the  last  court  of  appeal,  that  to 
which  all  must  not  only  in  name,  but  in  deed,  do  homage  ? 
We  all  know  in  what  an  infinite  variety  of  forms  these  ques- 
tions present  themselves,  how  they  force  themselves  upon  us 
in  the  business  of  every  day  life. 

The   notion  which  prevails  mostly  among  ourselves   is,  I 

think  something  of  this  kind.  In  a  civilized  country, — above  all, 

'  in  one  which  possesses  a  free  press, — there  is  a  certain  power, 

10  (217) 


218  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

mysterious  and  indefinite  in  its  operations,  but  producing  the 
most  obvious  and  mighty  effects,  which  we  call  public  opinion. 
If  this  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  acts  and  proceedings 
of  any  functionary,  we  suppose  that  there  is  as  much  security 
for  his  good  behavior  as  can  be  possibly  obtained.  He  lives 
under  the  conviction  that  his  acts,  as  a  public  servant,  are 
open  to  a  vigilant  and  suspicious  scrutiny,  experience  assures 
him  that  no  nice  or  acurate  line  will  be  drawn  between  this 
part  of  his  life  and  that  which  he  might  wish  to  claim  as  pri- 
vate— his  domestic  relations,  his  opinions  on  the  different 
topics  which  interest  his  fellow-men.  Thus  his  whole  existence 
is  in  a  great  measure  exposed;  his  sphere  of  independent 
action  or  judgment  is  very  limited.  Though  the  right  of  think- 
ing for  himself  may  be  one  which  he  is  anxious  to  assert,  nay, 
which  the  habits  and  rules  of  the  times  require  him  to  assert, 
the  actual  power  of  thinking  for  himself  can  only  be  exercised 
under  strict  conditions ;  practically,  the  circle  in  which  he 
moves,  or  the  world  at  large,  or  those,  be  they  who  they  may, 
who  dijject  the  world,  think  for  him. 

When  public  opinion  has  been  for  some  time  deified  in  this 
manner,  there  comes  a  strong  recoil.  "  Is  it  possible,"  men 
ask,  "  to  live  honestly  on  such  terms  as  these  ?  Has  the  pro- 
gress of  civilization,  as  it  is  called,  not  brought  us  into  greater 
freedom,  but  only  into  more  hopeless  slavery  ?  If  we  are  to 
have  masters,  should  we  not  know  who  they  are  ?  Should 
we  not,  at  least,  know  what  is  their  right  over  us  ?  Should 
they  not  have  some  claim  to  our  reverence,  if  they  have  no  hold 
upon  our  affections  ?  What  can  be  so  ignominious  as  this  sub- 
jection to  judges  whom  we  do  not  in  our  hearts  believe  to  be 
wise,  to  whom  in  secret  we  attribute  little  sincerity  or  truth, 
who  are  the  sport  of  a  thousand  accidents  and  influences,  as 
vulgar  as  any  of  those  which  could  pervert  our  own  judgments 
if  we  were  left  to  ourselves  ?  Is  it  not  the  business  of  a  man  to 
whako  off  such  a  yoke  as  this,  to  say  that  he  will  not  have  his 


REBELLION  AGAINST  IT.  219 

deeds  or  thoughts  moulded  by  this  opinion,  that  he  will  not 
bow  down  and  worship  an  image,  which  has  been  set  up  he 
cannot  tell  when  or  by  whom,  but  which  exacts  devotion  to 
itself  under  the  heaviest  penalties  1  Should  not  a  minister  of 
state,  a  legislator,  a  judge,  hold  himself  responsible  to  some 
other  tribunal  than  this  1  Must  he  not  do  so,  if  the  words 
which  go  forth  from  his  lips,  if  the  deeds  which  he  performs, 
are  ever  to  be  of  any  worth  to  ages  to  come,  even  to  his  own  ?n 

These  complaints  are  uttered.  In  youth,  many  strong  reso- 
lutions are  often  founded  upon  them, — many  bold  and  eccen- 
tric courses  taken  in  pursuance  of  them.  But  again  and  again 
the  man  is  driven  into  the  old  rut.  He  finds  that  the  world  was 
right  in  saying  that  self-will  is  a  perilous  and  fatal  guide.  He 
thinks  in  vain  where  a  substitute  for  this  strange  force  of  opin- 
ion is  to  be  found  ;  how  wicked  men  are  ever  to  be  curbed,  if 
it  is  not  held  up  to  them  as  an  object  of  fear ;  how  well-disposed 
men  are  ever  to  be  kept  in  an  even  course,  if  they  have  not 
some  hope  of  its  protection.  "  It  is  vague,  indefinite,  intangible 
enough,  no  doubt,  but  is  not  that  the  case  also  with  all  the 
powers  which  affect  us  most  in  the  physical  world  1  The  fur- 
ther men  advance  in  the  study  of  nature,  the  more  of  these  un- 
controllable, invisible  forces  seem  to  make  themselves  known. 
If  we  think  with  awe  of  mysterious  affinities,  of  some  mighty 
principle  which  binds  the  elements  of  the  universe  together, 
why  should  not  we  wonder  also  at  these  moral  affinities,  this 
more  subtle  magnetism,  which  bears  witness  that  every  man 
is  connected  by  the  most  intimate  bonds  with  his  neighbor, 
and  that  no  one  can  live  independently  of  another  ?" 

It  may  easily  be  admitted  that  a  reflection  of  this  kind  is 
suggested  when  we  meditate  upon  public  opinion, — the  insig- 
nificance of  the  agents  by  which  it  works,  and  the  greatness 
of  its  results  for  good  or  for  evil.  But  I  apprehend  no  one  is 
able  to  derive  this  lesson  from  it,  or  at  least  to  turn*it  to  any 
practical  use,  till  he  has  risen  in  some  measure  above  the  ter- 


220  THE  GREAT  ASSIZE. 

ror  of  it ;  any  more  than  he  can  estimate  the  sublimity  of  a 
storm,  while  he  is  trembling  lest  it  should  in  a  moment  destroy 
him  and  all  that  are  dear  to  him,  or  than  he  can  think  of  all  the 
hallowed  associations  wrhich  a  churchyard  at  night-time  might 
call  up,  while  he  is  dreading  lest  he  should  be  pursued  by  some 
pale  spectre.  If  we  could  learn  the  secret  of  overcoming  this 
power,  of  acting  as  if  we  were  indeed  responsible  to  some  other 
and  more  righteous  one  ;  if  that  conviction  could  be  as  present 
to  us  as  the  thought  of  the  judgment  which  our  fellowT-creatures 
pass  upon  us ;  if  our  whole  lives  were  moulded  by  the  one  belief 
as  much  as  they  are  wont  to  be  moulded  by  the  other,  we  should 
be  able  to  understand  what  the  world's  judgment  can  do  for  us 
as  well  as  what  it  cannot  do  ;  the  very  same  principle  which 
lfeeps  us  from  obeying  it  would  keep  us  from  despising  it ;  we 
should  be  saved  from  setting  up  our  own  tastes,  caprices,  nay, 
our  own  most  deliberate  judgments,  against  the  tastes,  caprices, 
judgments  of  our  own  or  other  ages;  just  because  we  should 
have  courage  to  say  to  them,  one  and  all,  "  Whether  it  be 
right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than  unto 
God,  judge  ye." 

Divines  have  thought  that  the  words,  "  We  must  all  appear 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ,"  might  be  so  taken  into  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  become  such  a  strong  abiding  conviction 
there,  that  all  the  opinions  of  contemporaries,  all  fear  of  popu- 
lar assemblies — even  of  the  most  august  earthly  tribunals — 
should  shrink  and  dwindle  before  them.  They  have,  therefore, 
presented  to  their  disciples  the  picture  of  a  great  assize, 
to  which  ail  ages  and  nations  shall  be  summoned.  What  has 
been  the  effect  of  such  descriptions  ?  We  feel  ourselves 
at  leisure  to  analyse  our  own  emotions  in  listening  to  them,  to 
compare  the  methods  in  which  the  subject  is  treated  by  different 
artists,  to  criticise  their  skill.  We  observe  how  much  more 
powerful  and  judicious  Jeremy  Taylor  is  than  others,  because 
he  has  gathered  together  distinct  groups,  such  as  "  those  whom 


DESCRIPTIONS  OF  IT.  221 

Caesar  Augustus  did  tax,"  instead  of  trusting  to  vage  cloudy  ab- 
stractions. Surely  this  is  proof  sufficient  that  the  preacher  has 
failed  of  his  purpose.  He  has  not  given  us  some  mighty  con- 
viction before  which  we  must  bow, — which  will  go  with  us 
where  we  go,  and  stay  with  us  where  we  stay.  The  fabric  of 
this  vision,  raised  by  however  noble  an  architect,  fades  more 
surely,  more  rapidly,  than  that  of  any  of  the  earthly  temples 
which  he  tells  us  are  perishing.  As  it  departs  it  leaves  the  im- 
pression on  our  mind  that  the  vulgarest,  pettiest  motives, 
which  act  upon  us  in  the  bustle  of  the  common  world,  are  more 
efficient  than  the  most  magnificent  anticipations  of  that  which 
is  to  be,  in  some  far-off  period.  We  may  mourn  that  it  should 
be  so  ;  we  may  utter  some  common-places  about  the  weakness 
or  depravity  of  human  nature ;  but  in  some  way  or  other  we 
reconcile  ourselves  to  the  discovery. 

Have  earnest  devout  men,  then,  deceived  themselves  in  this 
matter  ?  Were  they  wrong  in  supposing  that  the  belief 
in  Christ's  judgment  ought  to  be  a  mighty  belief  for  mankind  ? 
Was  it  not  a  mighty  one  for  their  own  hearts  ?  I  am 
sure  they  were  not  deceived.  The  thought  of  Christ's  judg- 
ment was  their  strength  in  prosperity  and  in  calamity.  It 
saved  them  from  floating  with  the  current  of  their  times  when 
it  was  gentle, — from  being  swept  away  by  it  when  it  was 
strong.  But  I  do  not  conceive  they  would  have  derived  the 
least  support  from  the  anticipation  of  standing  before  Christ  in 
some  distant  day,  if  they  had  not  believed  they  were  standing 
before  Him  in  their  town  day.  They  were  sure  that  for  them 
the  judgment  was  already  set,  the  books  were  already  opened  ; 
that  they  were  every  hour  of  their  lives  in  the  presence  of  One 
who  knew  the  intents  of  their  hearts,  and  who  was  calling  them 
to  account  for  these  and  for  the  acts  to  which  they  gave  birth. 
It  is  for  the  efforts  which  they  have  made  to  ground  us  in  the 
same  habitual  persuasion  that  we  are  chiefly  beholden  to  them. 
Whatever  light  they  have  thrown  on  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  a 


222  THE  JUDGMENT  PRESENT. 

judgment  to  come  has  proceeded  from  the  light  in  which  they 
were  continually  walking.  If  they  have  ever  darkened  that  doc- 
trine or  colored  and  distorted  it  by  their  fancy,  we  may  trace  the 
error  to  their  forgetfulnesa  of  that  truth  which  the  writers  of 
the  New  Testament  never  suffer  us  to  forget, — that  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever. 

Perhaps  you  will  say,  "  After  all  these  descriptions  which 
you  represent  as  so  ineffectual,  even  when  the  ability  displayed 
in  them  is  greatest,  are  only  the  expansion  and  realization 
of  the  words  in  the  Creed  :  '  From  thence  He  shall  come  to 
judge  the  quick  and  the  dead.'  If  one  is  weak,  the  other  must 
be  weaker ;  if  the  picture  which  tries  to  embody  the  fact  is  of 
such  small  worth,  what  can  be  the  use  of  merely  repeating  a 
bare  announcement  of  it  ?" 

The  objection  would  be  most  reasonable,  if  the  wrords,  "  He 
shall  come  to  judge  the  quiek  and  the  dead,"  could  be  se- 
parated from  all  that  has  gone  before, — if  no  pains  had  been 
taken  to  tell  us  who  He  is.  But  if  the  Creed  has  been  declar- 
ing Him  to  be  the  Son  of  God  our  Lord  ;  if  it  has  been  exhib- 
iting Him,  first,  in  the  closest  relationship  with  God,  secondly, 
in  the  closest  relationship  with  man, — this  relationship  not 
being  created  by  any  acts  which  are  recorded  afterwards,  but 
being  the  ground  and  explanation  of  those  acts,  not  being  the 
consequence  of  His  Incarnation,  or  Death,  or  Insurrection,  or 
Ascension,  but  the  cause  of  them  ; — then  I  apprehend  the  pi 
ticul  difference  between  the  dry  statement  and  the  brilliant 
translation  of  it  is  immeasurable.  According  to  the  one,  it  is 
impossible,  without  violating  the  law  of  my  being,  the  eternal 
order  and  constitution  of  things,  that  I  should  separate  myself 
from  Christ.  He  is  the  Lord  of  my  own  self,  of  my  spirit ; 
whether  I  confess  Him  or  not  I  must  continually  hear  His 
voice,  be  open  to  his  reproofs.  Wherever  I  am,  whatever  I  am 
doing,  He  must  be  there;  He  must  be  the  standard  of  my  acts; 
the  right  in  them  must  be  that  which  has  originated  in  Him,— 


CHRIST  ALWAYS  WITH  US.  223 

the  wrong  must  be  the  revolt  from  Him.  No  present  or  pos- 
sible  conditions  of  our  being  can  change  this  order.  Death,  it 
has  been  proved,  does  not  dissolve  our  relation  to  Him ;  He 
has  entered  into  it  for  us.  The  Resurrection  from  the  dead  is 
a  resurrection  for  us  as  well  as  for  Him ;  it  has  vindicated 
man's  true  condition,  not  subverted  it. 

The  Ascension,  if  we  admit  it  to  be  a  fact,  not  a  mere  idea, 
proves,  as  I  urged  in  the  last  Essay,  not  that  we  are  divided 
from  Him,  but  that  place  cannot  divide  us ;  that  we  are  spirits ; 
that  when  we  act  as  if  we  belonged  to  the  bodies  which  we 
are  meant  to  rule,  we  stoop  knowingly,  and  are  condemned  by 
our  consciences.  Such  a  doctrine,  I  said,  so  far  from  being  at 
variance  with  the  facts  of  history  and  the  laws  of  the  physical 
universe,  is  confirmed  by  both.  History  shows  how  confident 
men  have  been  in  all  times  that  they  were  meant  to  ascend 
above  their  earthly  conditions,  and  to  have  fellowship  with  an 
unseen  world ;  their  noblest  dreams  have  had  this  origin, — 
their  wildest  and  most  degrading  superstitions  have  arisen 
from  their  incapacity  to  claim  what  they  felt  was  their  right. 
Physical  science  shows  how  many  violations  of  true  and  divine 
laws  men  commit  when  they  become  slaves  of  their  bodies,  and 
into  what  ignorance  they  fail  when  they  accept  the  testimony 
of  their  senses  as  determining  those  laws ;  in  either  case  they 
are  evidently  not  obeying  reason,  but  setting  it  at  naught. 
What  follows?  This  exclusion  of  Christ  from  the  eyes  of 
sense  is  not,  as  men  fancy,  an  interruption  of  that  judgment 
which  ,He,  as  Lord  of  their  spirits,  is  continually  pronouncing; 
they  are  not  less  in  His  presence,  open  to  His  clear,  all-pene- 
trating vision,  now,  than  if  He  were  walking  in  their  streets. 
The  disciples  who  accompanied  Him  when  He  journeyed  from 
Galilee  to  Jerusalem,  and  sometimes  were  amazed  at  the  mys- 
tery of  His  being  and  at  His  knowledge  of  their  thoughts, 
understood  first  when  He  was  parted  from  them  how  entirely 
independent  that  being  and  that  knowledge  were  of  the  acci- 


224  WHAT  IS  A  JUDGE  ? 

dents  which  then  surrounded  Him, — how  much  these  accidents 
had  interfered  with  their  recognition  of  Him.  As  long  as  they 
had  any  notion  that  they  stood  to  Him  only  in  the  peculiar 
relation  of  disciples  to  a  Master,  as  long  as  that  relation  seemed 
to  them  an  external  fleshly  relation,  they  wanted  the  real  awe 
and  check,  as  well  as  the  real  help  and  support,  of  His  pre- 
sence. It  was  wrhen  they  understood  that  this  relation  was 
common  to  them  with  a  multitude  of  persons  nowise  bound  to 
them  by  kindred,  occupation,  race;  it  was  when  they  learnt 
that  the  real  bond  between  a  disciple  and  a  Lord  is  not  a 
visible,  but  an  invisible  one,  that  they  exercised  themselves  to 
have  consciences  void  of  offence,  being  certain  that  all  things 
were  flaked  and  open  to  the  eyes  of  Him  with  whom  they  had 
to  do,  and  that  to  be  reproved  by  11  im  was  a  far  more  serious 
thing  than  to  be  reproved  by  Sanhedrims  or  Proconsuls.  The 
Creed,  then,  affirms,  for  you,  and  me,  and  mankind,  first  of  all 
this  discovery  of  theirs, — that  Christ,  ascended  on  high  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  is  our  judge,  the  judge  of  the  living  and 
the  dead.  I  do  not  say  that  this  is  all  which  the  words  signify ; 
I  do  not  think  so;  but  I  say  that  whatever  else  they  signify, 
they  signify  this,  and  that  we  never  can  enter  into  the  other 
part  of  their  signification  if  we  do  not  acknowledge  this  as  the 
groundwork  of  it.  And  though  this  meaning  may  be  latent  in 
our  popular  discourses  on  a  great  judgment  day, — and  I  have 
no  doubt  it  is, — I  cannot  think  that  the  hearers  or  readers  of 
those  discourses  commonly  detect  it ;  they  suppose  that  they 
are,  at  some  distant,  unknown  period,  to  be  brought  into  the 
presence  of  One  who  is  far  from  them  now,  and  who  is  not 
now  fulfilling  the  office  of  a  Judge,  whatever  other  may  be 
committed  to  Him. 

There  is  another  difference,  not  less  radical  and  essential, 
which,  I  think,  we  must  all  at  times  have  perceived,  if  not 
when  we  were  repeating  this  article  of  the  Creed,  at  least  when 
we  were  reading  those  parts  of  the  Scriptures  which  most 


SCRIPTURE  IDEA  OF  IT.  225 

illustrate  it.  What  is  this  office  of  a  Judge?  Jf  we  follow 
the  popular  representations  of  the  great  Assize,  we  should 
conclude  that  it  was  fulfilled  when  certain  persons  wrere  sub- 
jected to  an  infinite  penalty  for  their  transgressions,  and  cer- 
tain others  wTere  absolved  from  that  penalty, — perhaps  acquired, 
by  some  means,  an  infinite  reward.  It  is  obvious  that  those 
who  make  these  statements,  intend  to  accommodate  themselves 
to  the  ordinary  maxims  of  men  ;  to  those  which  are  recognised 
in  earthly  jurisprudence.  They  rightly  assume  that  there  must 
be  an  analogy  between  the  divine  procedure  and  that  which 
we  own  to  be  righteous  here.  "The  difference  of  degree," 
they  would  say,  "  does  not  prevent  the  inspired  writers,  and 
ought  not,  therefore,  to  prevent  us,  from  resorting  to  the  same 
language  to  represent  both."  I  fully  accept  this  statement, 
and,  therefore,  I  would  put  it  to  any  English  jurist,  whether 
such  an  account  of  the  function  of  a  judge  as  this,  satisfies  any 
conception  that  he  has  formed  of  it  ?  Would  not  he  say  at 
once,^'  It  is  a  very  secondary  part  of  this  function  to  assign 
penalties  or  rewards  :  that,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  is  done 
already  by  the  law  which  the  judge  announces.  But  to  dis- 
cern who  is  right  and  who  is  wrong ;  amidst  a  multitude  of 
shifting,  distracting  appearances,  to  find  out  the  fact;  to  detect 
the  lie  which  is  hidden  under  the  plausible  coherent  story ;  to 
justify  the  true  and  honest  purpose  which  may  have  got  itself 
bewildered  in  a  variety  of  complications  and  contradictions, — 
hie  labor j  hoc  opus ;  here  is,  indeed,  a  sphere  for  the  exercise 
of  that  judicial  faculty,  which  we  all  esteem  so  highty, — 
scarcely  any  of  us  enough."  And  I  am  certain  we  shall  find 
that,  when  the  Scriptures  speak  of  a  divine  Judge,  it  is  this 
correspondence,  this  analogy  that  they  mainly  suggest  to  us. 
You  hear  of  the  Word  of  God,  who  is  quick,  and  powerful, 
and  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword — who  divides  asunder 
soul  and  spirit,  joints  and  marrow — who  is  a  discerner  of  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart.     You  hear  St.  Paul  declar- 

10* 


226  MINOS    AND   RHADAMANTHUS. 

ing  that  though  he  is  not  conscious  of  anything  against  himself, 
he  does  not  judge  himself,  but  He  that  judgeth  him  is  the 
Lord.  You  find  him  using,  in  the  same  passage,  the  remark- 
able expression  which  oocurs  again  and  again  in  his  writin 
and  to  which  I  shall  have  to  refer  presently  for  another  pur- 
pose, that  it  is  a  very  little  thing  for  him  to  be  judged  by  a 
human  day*  Such  an  expression,  so  strikingly  denoting  the 
kind  of  light  which  men  were  able  to  throw  upon  the  secrets 
of  the  heart,  is  a  key  to  thousands  of  others  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament— nay,  I  will  be  bold  to  say — a  key  to  the  language  of 
the  Bible,  wherever  there  is  an  allusion  to  the  judgments  of 
God,  or  to  Christ  as  judge.  Everywhere  the  idea  is  kept 
before  us  of  judgment,  in  its  fullest,  largest,   most  natural 

se,  as  importing  discrimination  or  discovery.  Everywhere 
that  discrimination  or  discovery  is  supposed  to  be  exercised 

r  the  man  himself,  over  his  internal  character,  over  his 
meaning  and  will.  Everywhere  the  substitution  of  any  mere 
external  trial  or  examination  for  this,  is  rejected  as  inconsistent 
with  the  spirit  and  grandeur  of  Christ's  revelation. 

Xowhere  is  this  difference  more  remarkably  brought  out 
than  in  the  words  which  we  have  translated,  "  For  we  shall 
all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ."  When  we  bear 
these  words  without  examining  them,  or  their  context,  we  are 
likely  enough  to  say,  "Here  is  the  old  story  of  Minos  and 
Bhadamanthus  again;  St..  Paul  knew  that  it  was  familiar  to 
the  ears  of  the  Corinthians,  lie  altered  it,  and  adapted  it  to 
his  Christian  notions."  I  am  far  indeed  from  denying  that 
St.  Paul  was  anxious  to  preserve  the  eternal  truth  which  lay 
hid  in  those  legends.     He  would  have  been  most  grieved  if  he 

1,  in  any  one  point,  made  the  Greeks,  to  whom  he  proclaim- 
ed! a  faith,  unbelievers.  It  was  his  duty  to  avail  himself,  as 
far  as  it  was  possible,  even  of  the  forms  of  language, — espe- 
cially if  they  were  not  merely   Greek,    but  human  forms,  ap- 

*   1  Cor.  iv.  3,  dv9p«Ctn;s  r^'poj. 


II.  CORINTHIANS,  CHAP.  V.  227 

pealing  to  the  feelings  and  consciences  of  men  in  all  countries, 
which  had  been  associated  with  old  convictions.  To  this  extent 
I  am  ready  to  admit  that  the  word  "  judgment-seat,"  or  "  tri- 
bunal," was  intended  to  remind  the  Corinthians  both  of  the 
courts  with  which  they  were  familiar  in  their  own  city,  of  the 
more  solemn  Areopagus,  and  of  those  which  their  imaginations 
had  fashioned  on  the  model  of  these  for  the  pale  spectres  in 
the  world  below.  But  if  this  were  his  object,  mark  what  the 
process  of  transformation  is.  In  the  first  ten  verses  of  this 
chapter,  and  several  of  the  preceding,  he  has  been  working 
out  the  doctrine  that  man  stands  in  a  twofold  relation;  to  a.'i 
earthly  visible  tabernacle  which  is  dissolving  ;  to  an  invisible 
Lord.  The  dissolution  of  that  perishabletabernacle  will  not, 
he  says,  involve  homelessness,  nakedness.  There  is  a  new 
clothing  provided  for  him  ;  a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eter- 
nal in  the  heavens.  -  Here  there  is  much  groaning ;  the  body 
bears  the  signs  of  suffering  and  death.  He  longs  to  put  on 
one  which  shall  be  free  living,  immortal,  "that  mortality  may 
be  swallowed  up  of  life.  He  believes  that  God  is  working  in 
him  to  produce  such  a  renovation  and  has  given  His  Spirit  as 
an  earnest  of  it.  He  is  confident,  therefore,  and  had  rather  be 
absent  from  the  body  which  is  making  such  demands  upon 
him,  that  he  might  be  present  with  the  Lord  of  his  spirit. 
"  For  we  walk,"  he  says,  "  by  faith,  not  by  sight."  We  do 
not  see  Him  to  whom  we  are  united — we  only  believe  Him 
and  trust  Him.  And  whether  that  vision  at  any  time  is  strong 
or  weak,  whether  we  are  crushed  by  the  external  tabernacle, 
or  are  rising  above  it,  we  are  still  ambitious  to  be  well  pleasing 
to  Him,  "  For  we  must  all " — not  appear — but  "  be  made 
manifest  before  the  tribunal  of  Christ."  A  time  must  come 
when  it  will  be  clearly  discovered  to  all  men  what  their  state 
was  while  they  were  pilgrims  in  this  world ;  that  they  were  in 
a  spiritual  relation  just  as  much  as  they  were  in  relation  to 
those   visible  things  of  which  their  senses  took   cognizance. 


228  THENCE  HE  SHALL  COME. 

That  which  has  been  hidden  will  be  made  known  ;  the  dark- 
ness will  no  longer  be  able  to  quench  the  light  which  has  been 
shining  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  seeking  to  penetrate  it;  each 
man  will  be  revealed  as  that  which  he  actually  is,  that  every 
one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  the  body,  according  to  that 
he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad.* 

This  language  is,  I  think,  strictly  and  beautifully  consistent 
with  all  that  the  Apostle  has  taught  us  of  Christ  as  the  Re- 
deemer and  Justifier — with  the  whole  purpose  and  method  of 
His  Gospel.  But  it  certainly  suggests  to  us  the  thought,  that 
tiie  tribunal  of  Christ  is  one  which  is  not  to  be  set  up  for  the 
first  time  in  some  distant  day,  amidst  earthly  pomp  and  cere- 
monial, but  that  it  is  one  before  which  we,  in  our  own  inmost 
being,  are  standing  now,  and  that  the  time  will  come  when  we 
shall  know  that  it  is  so,  and  when  all  which  has  concealed  the 
Judge  from  us  will  be  taken  away. 

"But  if  that  is  the  sense  of  St  Paul's  words,  why  do  we 
speak  in  the  Apostle's  Creed  of  His  coming  tJtcncc  to  ju<: 
the  quick  and  dead  ?  why  do  we  say  in  the  Nicene  ( 'reed  that 
He  shall  come  agaiii  in  glory?"  These  questions  are  so  im- 
portant, and  they  connect  themselves  with  so  many  thoughts 
which  are  occupying  and  agitating  men's  minds  in  the  present 
day,  that  I  am  most  anxious  fairly  to  consider  them. 

If  I  read  the  words,  From  thence  He  shall  come,  following 
immediately  upon  the  account  of  an  ascension  into  heaven, 
which  is  described  as  a  great  triumph  for  Him  and  for  man- 
kind, I  do  not  think  my  first  notion  wTould  be  that  they  implied 
that  He  would  descend  from  that  state — that  He  would  assume 
again  the  conditions  and  limitations  of  the  one  which  He  had 
left.  The  favorite  scriptural  analogy  of  the  sun  coming  forth 
out  of  his  bridal  chamber,  after  the  dark  night,  would  present 

Iva  xoynariTai  ixaaros  ra  61a,  lov  <5u>ua7o$,  rtpoj  u  t~pa%t v )  tlri  uyaObv 
elrt  xaxov.  I  do  not  think  any  one  can  be  exactly  satisfied  with  our 
rendering  of  this  sentence,  though  I  am  not  prepared  to  suggest  another. 


* 


THE  UNVEILING  OF  CHRIST.  229 

itself  as,  at  all  events,  much  more  obvious.  No  doubt  a  great 
many  considerations  might  induce  me  to  reject  this  sense  and 
accept  the  other.  I  might  find  that  express  words  in  the  New 
Testament  or  a  general  current  of  meaning  obliged  me  to  take 
up  with  the  more  difficult  hypothesis.  But,  in  fact,  express 
words  and  the  current  of  sense  force  me  out  of  the  difficult 
hypothesis  into  the  natural  one.  When  St.  Paul  wishes  to 
teach  us  about  the  coming  or  the  judgment  of  Christ,  the  word 
he  most  commonly  uses  is  atfoxd-kv^i^  or  '  unveiling.'  He 
looks  forward  to  the  unveiling  of  Christ.  He  bids  His  disci- 
ples in  all  the  Churches  live  in  the  expectation  of  it.  Or  else 
he  speaks  of  $avipw<ns — !  a  manifestation  ' — as  in  the  passage 
I  referred  to  just  now,  and  as  in  that  celebrated  passage  in  the 
eighth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  where  he 
describes  the  whole  Creation  as  looking  forward  to  deliverance 
from  its  travail  at  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God. 
Each  of  these  words,  especially  the  first,  receives  the  greatest 
illustration  from  the  Apostle's  own  history.  Whenever  he 
gives  the  story  of  his  conversion,  he  describes  it  as  an  un- 
veiling of  Christ  to  his  bodily  eye ;  when  he  lays  open  the 
principle  and  meaning  of  his  conversion,  he  represents  it  as 
the  revealing  or  unveiling  of  Christ  in  him.  This  idea,  in 
these  two  different  aspects  of  it,  therefore,  possessed  his  whole 
mind,  and  penetrated  his  teaching.  His  Gospel  to  men  was 
a  manifestation  or  revelation  of  Christ  to  them,  as  one  who 
had  proved  himself  to  be  their  Lord,  by  entering  into  their 
death,  and  by  redeeming  them  from  their  tyrants.  His  assu- 
rance to  each  man  was,  that  if  he  yielded  to  his  Deliverer,  and 
struggled  against  all  that  were  trying  to  enslave  him,  Christ's 
power  and  presence  would  be  revealed  to  him  more  every  day. 
His  hope  for  the  world  was,  that  Christ  would  in  due  time  re- 
veal himself  completely  as  its  Conqueror  and  King,  and  would 
bring  all  men  to  see  that  His  universe  was  built  on  truth  and 
righteousness.     In  strict  accordance  with  this  teaching,  ho  uses 


230  THE  DAY  OF  CHRIST. 

"day"  to  express  the  coming  or  revelation  of  Christ;  "day" 
being  taken,  as  the  reader  will  perceive  if  he  turns  to  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  or  to  the  fifth 
chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  in  opposi- 
tion to  night.  Hereby  he  explains  that  use  of  the  words 
"  human  day,"  to  which  I  referred  before,  as  expressing  the 
judgment  passed  by  men  upon  himself;  hereby  he  brings  forth 
the  full  force  and  intention  of  that  phrase  which  recurs  so 
continually  in  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament — "  The  day 
of  the  Lord."* 

And  there  is  this  further — I  think,  quite  unspeakable — bene- 
fit arising  from  his  use  of  this  form  of  expression.  Instead  of 
allowing  us  to  dream  of  a  final  judgment,  which  shall  be  unlike 
any  other  that  has  ever  been  in  the  world,  he  compels  us  to 
look  upon  every  one  of  what  we  rightly  call  "  God's  judgments" 
•ntially  resembling  it  in  kind  and  principle.  Our  eagerness 
to  deny  this  doctrine, — to  make  out  an  altogether  peculiar 
and  unprecedented  judgment  at  the  end  of  the  world, — has 
obliged  us,  first,  to  practise  the  most  violent  outrages  upon  the 
language  of  Scripture,  insisting  that  words  cannot  'mean  really 
what,  according  to  all  ordinary  rules  of  construction,  they  must 
mean.  Secondly,  it  has  obliged  us  to  treat  with  most  especial 
contumely  that  solemn  discourse  of  our  Lord  with  his  disciples 
when  they  showed  Him  the  buildings  of  the  Teniae,  and 
almost  to  deny  His  assertion  that  that  generation  should 
not  pass  till  all  the  things  he  spoke  of  wTere  fulfilled;  though 
he  adds  to  it  a  sentence  which  might  have  made  us  serious  in 
our   belief  of  Him,  if  anything  could : — "  Heaven  and   earth 

*  I  have  dwelt  so  much  upon  the  use  of  this  language,  in  my  Sermons 
on  the  Kings  and  Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  in  the  pre- 
vious volume  on  the  Old  Testament,  that  I  did  not  wish  to  enlarge  upon 
it  here ;  especially  as  it  will  come  out  more  properly  when  I  speak  of 
the  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  in  the  book  I  have  mentioned  in  the 
preface  to  this  Edition. 


4 


FALSE  IDEA  OF  JUDGMENT.  231 

shall  pass  aicay,  but  my  word  shall  not  pass  away."  Thirdly, 
as  I  hinted  when  I  was  alluding  to  this  subject  in  connexion 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection,  it  has  driven  us  into 
the  perilous  notion  that  we  are  only  using  metaphors  when 
we  speak  of  God  as  coming  forth  to  judge  the  world  in  any 
crises  of  war  or  revolution.  Certainly  the  Bible  justifies  that 
language,  as  not  metaphorical,  but  most  real.  It  speaks  of  all 
such  crises  as  "  days  of  the  Lord." 

The  "  coming"  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  the  "  coming 
again"  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  must  both  indicate,  if  we  derive 
our  interpretation  of  them  from  the  Scriptures,  not  that 
Christ  will  resume  earthly  conditions,  or  will  take  a  throne  in 
some  part  of  this  earth,  but  that  He  will  be  manifested  as  He 
is.  The  Nicene  phrase,  "  coming  again  in  glory,"  which  is  taken 
from  our  Lord's  own  words,  u  The  Son  of  man  shall  come  in 
the  glory  of  His  Father ',  and  of  the  holy  angels"  seems  express- 
ly intended  to  guard  against  the  notion  that  He  should  be 
invested  with  some  of  those  vulgar  ensigns  of  royalty  which 
the  sense-bound  Jew  supposed  were  needful  to  make  Him  a 
King,  while  He  proved  Himself  to  be  one  by  healing  the  sick, 
and  casting  out  devils.  In  our  day,  many  of  those  who  are 
most  busy  in  the  study  of  prophecy,  complain  of  the  Creeds, 
because  they  do  not  set  forth,  distinctly,  their  notion  of  a 
second  coming  of  Christ  to  reign  on  the  earth,  but  only  speak 
of  a  judgment  of  quick  and  dead.  I  can  sympathise  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  with  their  feelings,  though  I  am  convinced 
that  the  Creeds  are  right,  and  that  they  are  wrong. 

If  the  belief  of  a  judgment  takes  the  form,  which  it  certainly 
has  taken  in  the  minds  of  many  of  us ;  if  we  look  upon  it  only 
as  something  exceedingly  terrible,  which  we  are  to  set  before 
our  readers  when  all  ordinary  resources  of  argument  and  rhe- 
toric have  failed, — when  we  can  no  longer  move  them  by  any 
testimonies  we  bear  concerning  the  mercy  of  God  or  His 
redeeming  Love ;  if  the  thought  of  Christ  as  a  Judge  is  one 


232  THE  SECOND  COM  NG. 

which  we  are  to  shrink  from,  though  we  may  find  satisfaction 
in  thinking  of  Him  as  a  Saviour; — then  it  is,  indeed,  utterly 
unintelligible  why  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  should  so 
continually  call  upon  God  to  rise  and  judge  the  earth  ;  why 
this  should  be  the  great  burthen  of  their  prayers,  the  ultimate 
point  of  their  hopes;  and  why  the  writers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment should  exhort  their  disciples  to  lift  up  their  heads,  and  to 
desire,  above  all  things,  the  Eevelation  of  Jesus  Christ.     To 

ape  from  this  amazing  contradiction,  it  has  been  natural 
for  men  to  invent  a  theory  and  say,  "  He  is  coming,  but  not 
only  for  this  end,  not  first  for  this  end.     1  ft-  is  coming  to  reign 

P  His  saints, — to  give  them  rest  from  their  enemies;  tl 
the  judgment  of  the  world  will  follow/'  It  is  better,  I  think, 
that  men  should  cherish  this  belief,  than  that  they  should  con- 
template Christ  as  one  who  has  saved  heretofore,  but  is  com- 
ing  hereafter  only  to  punish  and  condemn.  For  though  some 
connect  no  better  thoughts  with  this  faith  than  the  expectation 
of  their  own  supremacy, — and  from  the  supremacy  of  those 
who  can  indulge  so  dark  and  selfish  a  dream,  good  Lord  ! 
deliver  Thy  bleeding  earth — no   tyranny  that  hfl  P  existed 

upon  it,  would  be  so  godless  and  so  intolerable, — there  are 
numbers  of  true-hearted  Millenarians,  who  rejoice  in  it  only 
because  it  is  identified  in  their  minds  with  the  victory  of  Christ 
over  what  is  evil,  with  the  establishment  of  His  gracious  domi- 
nion over  all  people.  Such  men  felt  themselves  tied  and  bound 
by  the  notion  of  the  religious  world,  that  Christ  had  taken  the 
nature  of  man  and  died  on  the  Cross,  only  to  save  a  few  elect 
souls.  They  were  sure  that  He  must  intend  to  bless  mankind, 
to  redeem  the  earth.  Most  glorious  conviction,  which  no  Creeds 
that  men  have  ever  framed,  must  tempt  us  to  part  with,  for  the 
Bible  witnesses  of  it  in  every  page  ;  *the  truth  and  love  of  God 
are  involved  in  our  holding  it  fast !  But  the  Creeds  differ  in  one 
respect  from  the  supporters  of  this  pre-millennial  Advent.  They 
teach  us  that  1800  years  ago,  He  who  was  crucified  under  Pon- 


THE  CREEDS   6PEAE1  OF  A  REIGNING  KING.  233 

tius  Pilate,  asserted  and  proved  that  He  was  the  Lord  of  Man, 
— that  while  the  Jews  were  confounding  a  real  king  with  an 
emperor  clothed  in  purple,  He  demonstrated  wherein  kingship 
consists,  and  what  are  the  highest  powers  which  belong  to  it. 
A  creed  that  speaks  of  a  Son  of  God  and  a  Son  of  Man,  has 
no  need  to  tell  us, — could  not  tell  us  without  contradicting  all 
its  other  statements, — that  at  some  distant  day  he  will  assume 
an  authority  which  He  has  never  exercised  yet.  But  it  may 
tell  us,  it  should  tell  us,  that  He  who  sat  as  a  King,  and  judged 
as  a  King,  when  the  city  and  temple  of  Jerusalem  fell,  and  the 
old  world  passed  away  with  a  great  noise ;  He  who  sat  as  a 
King,  and  judged  as  a  King,  when  the  mightiest  empire  the 
world  had  ever  seen  was  broken  in  pieces  by  a  stone  cut  out 
of  the  mountain  without  hands ;  He  who  has  been  confessed 
as  a  King  by  all  the  most  civilized  nations  of  the  Western 
world ;  in  whose  Name  kings  have  reigned  and  decreed  just- 
ice ;  He  who  has  been  proving  that  the  powers  which  they  used 
were  His,  by  sweeping  away  dynasties,  and  putting  down 
nations,  the  cup  of  whose  iniquities  was  full ;  He  from  whom 
all  that  has  been  righteous,  gracious,  gentle,  orderly,  civilized, 
in  the  economy  of  nations,  families,  churches,  has  come ;  He 
against  whom  all  that  has  been  cowardly,  cruel,  slavish,  super- 
stitious, in  that  economy,  has  been  rebelling, — will  most  assu- 
redly be  manifested,  not  in  some  little  obscure  corner  of  the 
earth,  where  pilgrims  may  go  to  look  for  Him,  but  as  the  light- 
ning shineth  from  the  one  end  of  heaven  to  the  other ;  will  be 
manifested,  not  changed  and  shrivelled  from  the  crucified,  risen, 
ascended  Lord,  to  the  miserable  Caesar  the  Jews  fancied  Him 
to  be;  but  "  coming  as  He  went,"  in  the  glory  of  His  Father, 
so  that  every  eye  may  see  Him,  so  that  every  king,  and  judge, 
and  priest,  who  has  professed  to  rule  or  teach  by  His  authority 
or  for  Him,  shall  be  forced  to  own  to  himself  and  to  the  uni- 
verse, whether  he  has  been  serving  truth  or  a  lie ;  whether  he 
has  been  serving  Christ,  or  Mammon,  or  himself;  whether  he 


234         HOW  TO  KEEP  BAD  MEN  IX  AWE. 

has  bowed  down  to  the  judgment  and  opinion  of  any  public, 
religious  or  secular,  or  has  walked  as  a  child  of  the  day  in  that 
light  which  lighteth  every  man  who  does  not  choose  the  dark- 
ness. Surely  a  sound  creed  should  tell  us  this,  and  should  there- 
fore convey  to  us  the  needful  assurance  and  comfort,  that  all 

■nts  have  been  working  under  a  divine  guidance  to  a  divine 

ie;  that  nothing  which  lias  been  good  can  ever  perish  ;  that 
nothing  which  is  evil  can  abide  in  that  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness, and  truth,  and  peace,  which  is  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
of  His  Son,  and  therefore  can  have  no  end. 

In  spite  of  my  conflict  with  the  Idealists  in  my  last  Essay,  I 
am  quite  prepared  to  hear  the  charges  that  I  have  now  been 
defending  an  ideal,  and  not  an  actual,  judgment  day,  and  that 
I  confound  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  Christ  with  His  reign  over 
the  earth.  I  can  only  answer,  as  I  have  answered  before,  that 
1  have  found  the  current  notions  of  a  judgment,  not  exactly 
ideal,  but  exceedingly  fantastic,  figurative,  inoperative,  and  that 
I  have  tried  to  ascertain  whether  Scripture  does  not  give  us 
the  hint  of  something  more  practical  and  more  substantial.  If 
the  popular  notion  on  this  subject  is  thought  necessary  to  pro- 
duce terror  in  the  minds  of  thi<  ad  vagabonds,  I  own  that 
I  am  ideal  enough  to  think  the  constabulary  force  a  more  u 
ful,  effectual,  and  also  a  more  godly,  instrument.     That  does 

sert  the  existence  of  an  actual  present  justice.;  that  does 
awaken  in  the  consciences  of  evil  men  the  sense  of  a  law.  which 
never  loses  sight  of  them,  and  may  find  out  their  darkest  deeds  ; 
that  holds  out  to  their  merely  animal  nature,  which  requires 
such  discipline,  the  prospect  of  a  sure  and  speedy  punishment. 
If,  again,  the  popular  notion  on  this  subject  is  wanted  as  an 
influence  to  act  habitually  on  the  lives  of  ordinary  worldly  men, 
and  it  is  alleged  that  I  have  substituted  for  it  the  notion  of  a 
mysterious  judgment,  of  which  it  is  impossible  that  such  men 
can  make  any  account, — then  I  reply,  that  it  is  precisely 
this    kind   of   mysterious   judgment,    which    these   men   do 


WORLDLY  MEN  J    RELIGIOUS  MEN.  235 

recognise,  and  to  which  they  pay  habitual  homage  under  the 
name  "of   Public  Opinion.     But  if  you  require  this  popular 
notion  for  the  sake  of  religious  men,  or  of  those  who  are  look- 
ing forward  to  some  great  improvement  in  the  constitution  of 
the  world,  then  I  say  it  is  quite  clear  that  such  nfen  are   not 
in  the  least  satisfied  with  it,  but  are  inclined  rudely  to  discard  « 
it.     Such  men  demand  for  themselves  an  habitual  government, 
inspection,  judgment,  reaching  to  the  roots  of  their  heart  and 
will ;  such  men  demand  for  the  earth  some  complete  deliver- 
ance from  all  that  defiles  it  and  sets  it  in  rebellion  against  a 
true  and  righteous  King.    The  religious  men  must  have  a  king- 
dom over  their  own  spirits;  do  not  they  see  that  only  such  a 
kingdom  can  be  of  any  worth  to  any  human  being  whatsoever? 
Has  not  Christ  claimed  to  be  King  over  both  the  spirits  and 
bodies  of  men  ?  over  their  bodies,  because  over  their  spirits  ; 
over  all  things  whatsoever,  because  over  the  creature  to  which 
all  things  are  put  in  subjection.     Do  we  need  a  return  to  the 
lowest  Judaism,  the  lowest  Heathenism,  in  our  notions  of  the 
relation  between  spirit  and  matter,  the  eternal  and  the  tempo- 
ral ?     Do  we  not  require  a  redemption  of  all  that  is  human 
from  its  changeable  accidents  ;  a  judgment  and  separation  which 
shall  come  from  the  revelation  of  Him  who  has  redeemed  and 
glorified  our  whole  humanity,  between  that  in  us  which  is  His, 
and  that  which  we  have  contracted  by  turning  away  from  Him? 
Do  we  not  ask  for  a  day  in  which  all  the  scattered  limbs  of 
Christ's  body  in  heaven  and  earth  shall  be  gathered  together 
in  Him,  for  a  day  in  which  light  and  darkness,  life  and  death, 
shall  never  be  mingled  or  confounded  again  1     Is  there  any  one 
who  seriously  believes  that  it  is  a  day  of  twenty-four  hours  in 
>  duration  which  we  are  thus  expecting  ?     Is  it  not  one  which 
has  dawned  on  the  world  already,  which  our  consciences  tell 
us  wTe  may  dwell  in  now,  which  therefore  Scripture  and  reason 
both  affirm  must  wax  clearer  and  fuller  till  He  who  is  the  Sik: 
of  righteousness  is  felt  to  be  shining  everywhere,  and  till  there 


236  USE  OF  THE  WORDS  OF  THE  CREED. 

is  no  corner  of  the  universe  into  which  His  beams  have  not 
entered  ? 


I  do  not  intend  these  Essays  as  a  commentary  on  either  of 
our  Cree<  We  have,  I  suspect,  more  commentaries  on  them 
than  we  want.  In  most  cases,  I  have  preferred  to  take  my 
titles  from  popular  and  recognised  names  of  doctrines,  not  to 
express  them  in  the  words  of  our  formularies.  I  have  spoken 
of  the  Incarnation,  of  the  Atonement,  of  Justification  by  Faith  ; 
not  of  Christ  being  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  born  of 
the  Virgin  Mary,  or  suffering  under  Pontius  Pilate.  For  my 
object  has  been  to  examine  the  language  with  which  we  are 
most  familiar,  and  which  has  been  open  to  most  objections, 
especially  from  Unitarians.     Respecting  the  Conception,  I  have 

en  purposely  silent;  not  because  I  have  any  doubt  about 
that  article  or  am  indifferent  to  it,  but  because  I  believe  the 
word  l  miraculous,  'which  we  ordinarily  connect  with  it,  sug- 
gests an  untrue  meaning ;  because  I  think  the  truth  is  conveyed 
to  us,  most  safely,  in  the  simple  language  of  the  Evangelists ; 
and  because  that  language,  taken  in  connexion  with  the  rest 
of  their  story,  offers  itself,  I  suspect,  to  a  majority  of  those  who 
have  taken  in  the  idea  of  an  Incarnation,  as  the  only  natural 
and  rational  account  of  the  method  by  which  the  eternal  Son 
of  God  could  have  taken  human  flesh.* 

But  I  have  deviated  from  this  practice  in  three  cases.  I 
have  used  the  express  words  of  the  Creed  as  the  text  of  my 
remarks  upon  the  Resurrection,  the  Ascension,  and  the  Judg- 
ment. I  have  done  so,  perfectly  well  knowing  that  I  am  lay- 
ing nryself  open  to  the  displeasure,  not  only  of  the  Unitarians, 
but  of  the  other  Dissenters,  who  would  have  a  much  better 

*  I  have  expressed  my  thoughts  on  this  subject  in  a  Sermon  "  On 
Marriage,"  in  "  The  Church  a  Family." 


TENETS  AND  CREEDS.  337 

opinion  of  me,  if  I  had  defended  the  same  principles  without 
appealing  to  what  they  consider  dry  and  worn-out  documents. 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  can  find  a  better  opportunity  than 
this  for  addressing  myself  directly  to  the  feelings  of  Unitarians 
on  this  point.  They  have  a  great  horror  of  a  Creed.  But 
tenets  they  must  have.  The  other  Dissenters  have  a  great 
many.  Their  list,  they  boast,  is  reasonably  small.  The  tenet 
of  a  Judgment  to  come  or  Resurrection  of  the  just  and  unjust, 
however,  is  included  among  them.  I  do  not  know  whether 
they  very  distinctly  define  their  opinions  on  this  subject ;  but 
a  respectable,  well-conditioned  Unitarian  would  be  very  sorry 
if  his  orthodox  neighbor  supposed  they  were  widely  at  variance 
upon  it.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  same  vague,  supersti- 
tious apprehension,  which  1  have  said  that  we  derive  from  hea- 
thenism, he  must  have  derived  from  it  also.  The  sense  of  a 
judgment  to  come  is  so  kindred  to  our  nature,  so  rooted  in 
our  nature,  that  we  must  hold  it  under  one  form  or  another. 
The  old  Minos  form,  or  one  that  is  akin  to  it,  will  be  the  form 
which  this  tenet  assumes  so  long  as  it  is  merely  a  tenet.  What 
I  contend  is,  that  it  assumes  a  higher,  nobler,  more  practical 
form  when,  ceasing  to  be  a  tenet,  it  becomes  part  of  a  Creed. 
When  it  is  viewed  as  one  of  the  acts  of  a  living  Person,  a  Son 
of  Man  and  a  Son  of  God,  then  its  coating  of  superstition  falls 
off  from  it :  it  becomes  identified  with  the  greatest  triumphs 
that  humanity  has  yet  won — with  its  present  struggles,  with 
its  most  glorious  hopes. 

I  submit  this  remark  to  the  earnest  consideration  of  all 
classes  of  Unitarians,  but  especially  of  those  who  are  becoming 
discontented  with  the  tenets  of  their  forefathers.  They  very 
naturally  argue  in  this  way, — "We  cannot  bear  the  yoke 
which  is  upon  our  necks  already.  You  would  put  a  heavier 
one  upon  them.  We  have  been  beaten  with  rods ;  you  would 
beat  us  with  scorpions."  The  other  Dissenters  press  the  same 
argument  upon  their  disciples  :  "  You  complain  of  us  for  com- 


238  THE  OPPRESSION  OF  TENETS. 

pelling  you  to  accept  dogmas  which  you  do  not  feel  to  be  rea- 
sonable, nay,  even  for  preventing  you  from  appealing  to  Scrip- 
ture against  them,  because,  after  a  congregation  or  school  has 
accepted  a  certain  interpretation  of  Scripture,  it  is  bound  by 
that.  What  would  become  of  you,  then,  if  you  were  connect- 
ed with  a  Church  which  formally  and  avowedly  holds  its  mem- 
bers to  a  certain  Creed  ?"  I  am  not  careful  to  answer  this 
argument.  I  am  a  very  bad  proselytizer.  If  I  could  persuade 
all  Dissenters  to  become  members  of  mv  Church  to-morrow,  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  do  it ;  I  believe  the  chances  are,  they 
might  leave  it  the  next  day.  I  do  not  wish  to  make  them  think 
as  I  think.  But  I  want  that  they  and  I  should  be  what  we 
pretend  to  be,  and  then  I  doubt  not  we  should  find  that  there 
is  a  common  ground  for  us  all  far  beneath  our  thinkings.  For 
truth  I  hold  not  to  be  that  which  every  man  troweth,  but  to 
be  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  men's  trowings,  that  in 
which  those  trowings  have  their  only  meeting  point.  But  what 
I  cannot  and  would  not  do,  I  believe,  the  experience  of  a  great 
many  Dissenters  will  do  for  them.  They  will  be  driven  to 
edfl  by  their  weariness  of  tenets.  They  will  find  that  they 
are  at  the  mercy  of  every  tyrannical  congregation,  of  its  weal- 
thiest member,  of  every  dogmatist  who  rules  a  school,  of  the 
public  opinion  of  the  sect  which  rules  him.  They  will  be  com- 
pelled to  ask,  "  Howr  does  this  happen  ?  Is  there  no  escape 
from  these  oppressive  judgments  of  human  beings, — no  escape 
but  into  absolute  doubt  and  denial  ?  not  even  an  escape  into 
them, — for  what  intolerant  dogmatists  there  are  among  doubt- 
ers and  deniers  !"  If  they  want  freedom  .for  their  reason  and 
wills,  the  old  Creeds  speak  of  One  who  came  to  deliver  them. 
If  they  feel  that  the  language  of  Scripture  cannot  be  tied  down 
by  the  language  of  a  formula,  Creeds  oblige  us  to  look  out  of 
themselves  to  some  booK  which  shall  unfold  the  person  and 
the  acts  of  Him  of  whom  they  are  bearing  witness.  They 
never  can  put  themselves  in  the  place  of  our  reason  or  of  Scrip- 


GOD  S  METHOD.  239 

ture,  till  their  words  are  perverted,  and  the  sense  of  them  con- 
tradicted. Why  there  should  be  such  documents  in  the  world, 
I  can  explain  no  more  than  I  can  explain  why  any  part  of  the 
order  of  Nature  should  exist,  or  why  it  should  be  in  harmony 
with  any  other  part.  I  find  it  so.  I  give  God  thanks  that  it 
is  so.  I  hope,  in  the  day  when  He  is  revealed,  and  we  are  all 
called  to  answer  for  the  use  or  abuse  we  have  made  of  His 
gifts,  that  He  will  enable  us  to  enter  more  fully  into  this  and 
many  other  mysteries  of  His  government,  which  I  understand 
most  imperfectly,  but  which  have  helped  me  to  understand 
myself. 


ESSAY    XIII. 


ON  INSPIRATION. 


Any  Clergyman  who  ventures  to  write  on  Inspiration,  will 
be  asked  whether  he  is  prepared  to  defend  the  popular  views 
on  that  subject.  If  not,  all  his  more  judicious  friends  will  ad- 
■  him  to  be  silent.  He  may  injure  his  own  reputation;  he 
may  do  what  is  much  worse — he  may  injure  the  faith  of  his 
countrymen  and  countrywomen. 

\ cannot  undertake  to  defend  the  popular  views  upon  this 
or  any  other  subject.  First,  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  ascertain 
what  they  are.  What  is  called  a  popular  view  expands  or 
contracts  at  the  pleasure  of  writers  in  newspapers  and  reviews. 
It  appears  to  be  exceedingly  definite ;  you  approach  it,  it  has 
almost  vanished.  Popular  notions  have  a  considerable  vigor 
for  purposes  of  attack.  They  can  be  used  with  great  effect 
against  a  supposed  enemy  of  the  faith.  They  only  fail  when 
you  want  them  for  use  and  comfort.  They  are  full  of  warmth 
and  fervor  on  the  platform,  in  the  closet  they  are  as  cold  as 
ice.  They  stir  up  all  the  elements  of  strife  and  bitterness  in 
the  natural  heart ;  I  do  not  find  that  they  stir  the  spirit  to  any 

(240) 


POPULAR  NOTIONS  ;    ARE  THEY  POPULAR?  241 

energetic  action  for  God  or  man.  Next,  what  are  called  popu- 
lar notions  answer,  it  seems  to  me,  very  ill  to  their  name. 
They  do  not  come  from  the  people,  they  do  not  touch  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  They  are  not  like  old,  racy,  homely  pro- 
verbs, which  embody  so  much  of  common,  and  therefore  so 
much  of  genuine,  feeling.  They  do  not  call  forth  any  hearty, 
intelligent  response  when  they  are  proclaimed  among  simple 
men  who  work  with  their  hands.  There  is  a  sickly  perfume 
about  them,  which  denotes  them  not  to  have  been  nursed  in 
the  open  air,  but  in  flower-pots.  The  seeds  of  them  may  have 
been  sown  in  the  study,  but  they  have  ripened  in  the  boudoir  ; 
their  greatest  exposure  has  been  in  crowds,  in  which  there  is 
breath  enough  of  some  kind,  but  which  the  breath  of  heaven  is 
not  suffered  to  visit.  And  lastly,  adherence  to  these  popular 
notions  is,  I  think,  incompatible  with  a  strict  adherence  to 
those  Creeds  which  we  solemnly  confess,  still  more  incompati- 
ble with  a  continual  and  direct  appeal  to  the  Bible,  as  a  guide 
and  an  authority.  I  have  explained  why  I  think  so  in  other 
cases ;  some  of  the  popular  notions  about  Inspiration,  instead 
of  being  an  exception  to  either  remark,  offer,  I  suspect,  the 
most  striking  illustrations  of  both. 

What  is  said  about  the  danger  to  reputation  is  perfectly 
true ;  every  one  should  consider  it  for  himself.  A  man  trem- 
bles for  his  wealth  in  proportion  to  the  insecurity  of  his  invest- 
ment ;  the  miser,  who  has  been  afraid  to  deposit  it  anywhere 
but  in  some  chest  or  cupboard  within  his  reach,  has  the  best 
reason  of  all  for  trembling.  The  religious  world  has  a  painful 
feeling  that  it  has  been  hoarding  up  treasures  for  itself,  and 
has  not  been  rich  towards  God ;  therefore  it  is  continually  in 
dread  of  burglars  and  pickpockets.  Let  it  use  all  precautions ; 
let  it  prove  how  free  it  is  from  the  maxims  of  the  ordinary 
world,  by  banishing  trust  and  cultivating  universal  suspicion. 
All  of  us  like  its  smiles,  dread  its  frowns.  We  shall  take  great 
pains  to  secure  one,  and  avert  the  other,  if  there  is  no  smile 

11 


242  REPUTATION  AND  USEFULNESS. 

that  we  care  for  more,  no  frown  which  we  count  more  terrible. 
But  many  of  us  persuade  ourselves,  all  of  us  have  probably  at 
one  time  yielded  to  the  opinion,  that  reputation  is  necessary 
for  the  sake  of  usefulness.  Every  hour,  I  think,  will  show  us 
more  and  more  that  the  concern  about  reputation  is  the  great 
hindrance  to  usefulness;  that  if  we  desire  to  be  useful,  we 
must  struggle  against  it  night  and  day. 

That  thought  suggests  the  really  great  argument  against 
meddling  with  this  subject  of  Inspiration ;  we  may  injure  the 
faith  of  our  brothers  and  sisters.  A  most  potent  reason  for 
p  taking  some  course  in  reference  to  it ;  whether  silence  is  that 
course,  they  may  be  able  to  decide  who  know  something  of 
the  present  feeling  of  different  classes  of  Englishmen.  Can 
you  prevent  any  set  of  men,  nay,  any  man  or  woman,  from 
knowing  that  this  question  has  been  stirred  ?  Do  not  those 
who  lay  down  theories  of  Inspiration,  and  denounce  others  for 
not  acquiescing  in  them,  proclaim  that  fact  aloud  ?  Is  it  not 
true,  as  thflM  persons  affirm  so  constantly,  that  the  faith  of 
our  countrymen,  as  well  as  of  other  Kuropeans,  in  the  Bible, 
is  shaken  already  ?  Are  there  not  very  clear  evidences  in 
their  restless  eagerness  to  get  all  objections  put  down,  that 
their  own  faith  is  feeble  and  tottering?  Is  it  not  a  duty  wThich 
we  owe  to  those  who  confess  their  doubts,  which  we  owe 
quite  as  much  to  those  who  are  trying  to  hush  their  doubts  by 
making  a  noise,  not  to  avoid  the  subject,  but  to  face  it,  and  to 
express  ourselves  upon  it  with  as  much  frankness,  as  little  am- 
biguity as  possible  ?  To  avoid  the  charge  of  ambiguity,  of  wil- 
fully concealing  some  opinion  which  it  would  be  inconvenient 
to  express,  is  impossible.  No  one  who  has  had  the  slightest 
experience  will  expect  to  do  that.  The  most  vehement  cham- 
pion of  modern  theories  about  the  Inspiration  of  the  Bible, — 
the  most  passionate  denier  of  its  Inspiration, — will  agree  in 
declaring  that  any  person  who  refuses  the  shibboleths  of  either 
is  tampering  with  his  conscience,  and  does  not  mean  what  he 


DANGER  OF  REPETITIONS.  243 

says.  They  are  perfectly  entitled  to  their  opinion  ;  their  har- 
mony upon  one  point,  while  they  agree  on  no  other,  will  be  a 
decisive  proof  with  many  that  they  are  right.  Those  who  try 
to  disturb  so  fixed  a  conviction,  will  always  repent  of  their 
pains,  and  will  find  that  the  argument, — probably,  which  is 
much  more  precious,  the  temper — they  have  expended,  has 
brought  no  calculable  return.  The  utmost  any  one  can  dream 
of  or  should  desire  is,  that  his  sincerity  should  be  tried  by  his 
peers ;  that  is  to  say,  by  those  who  have  felt  these  difficulties, 
and  have  sought,  or  still  seek,  a  solution  of  them;  not  by  men 
of  another  and  altogether  superior  race,  who  are  quite  above 
human  dangers  and  human  sympathies,  and  are  able  to  look 
down  upon  us  from  a  region  of  self-satisfied,  untroubled  ortho- 
doxy, or  from  a  region  which,  being  exactly  antipodal  to  this, 
resembles  it  in  temperature,  the  region  of  self-satisfied,  untroub- 
led unbelief. 

The  only  legitimate  reason  which  can  deter  a  person  who 
has  spoken  or  written  much  on  theological  subjects,  from  enter- 
ing on  this,  is,  that  he  must  almost  necessarily  have  handled  it 
before.  The  question  of  Inspiration  touches  so  nearly  upon 
all  the  thoughts  with  which  men  in  this  day  are  occupied,  that 
at  whatever  point  one  comes  into  contact  with  those  thoughts, 
it  must  be  encountered.  The  fear  of  repeating  the  same  pro- 
positions again  and  again,  besets  every  one  who  tries  to  ex- 
press convictions  which  are  very  sacred  to  him,  and  which  he 
thinks  his  contemporaries  have  as  much  right  in  as  he  has. 
As  he  knows  only  common -places,  and  cares  for  nothing  else, 
he  cannot  deal  in  novelties.  But  he  must  be  conscious  how 
much  common-places  lose  their  force,  and  are  mistaken  for  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  a  particular  mind,  when  they  come  forth  fre- 
quently clothed  in  the  phrases  and  forms  which  education  or 
circumstances  have  made  habitual  to  him.  The  dread  of  giv- 
ing them  merely  a  personal  character,  grows  with  his  belief 
that  they  are  truths  for  mankind.     But  however  justifiable  this 


244  NECESSITY  FOR  THEM. 

feeling  is,  it  must  often  yield  to  other  considerations.  A  man 
will  not  understand  what  your  convictions  are,  till  you  have 
put  them  in  various  lights;  till  you  have  given  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  applying  various  tests  to  them.  It  is  not  enough  to 
treat  of  any  great  subject  which  an  age  is  busy  with,  collat- 
erally ;  you  must  speak  of  it  directly,  must  grapple  with  the 
very  words  and  forms  in  which  people  are  wont  to  see  it 
exhibited;  else  they  will  fancy  that  you  and  they  arenot  intending 
the  same  thing.  It  is  better  to  run  the  risk  of  a  hundred  repe- 
titions, (which  after  all,  not  fifty  or  twenty  persons  may  be 
aware  of])  than  to  omit  an  opportunity  when  it  offers,  of 
relieving  the  conscience  of  a  fellow-creature  from  some  dis- 
tressing bondage,  or  of  protesting  against  some  unrighteous 
attempt  to  keep  it  in  prison.* 

I  shall  therefore  fix  my  thoughts  on  the  word  Inspiration 
our  disputes  are  emphatically  about  the  word.     They  are  not 
•al  for  that.      They  point  to  facts  and  to  substances;   but 
the  best  way  <  and  of  coming  to  understand 

*  Not  at  all  that  I  may  oblige  ■  lor  (which  I  could  not  do  if  I 

■would)  to  look  into  books  which  he  may  never  have  heard  of,  but  simply 
that  any  one  who  pi  :nay  have  an  opportunityof  proving  either  thai 

I  have  merely  said  again  here  what  I  have  said  before,  or  that  I  have  said 
something  altogether  inconsistent  with  that,  I  would  mention  that  I  have 
alluded  to  the  subject  of  Inspiration  in  a  chapter  on  the  Bible,  in  a  book 
called  "The  Kingdom  of  Christ,"  which  was  published  many  years  ago  ; 
more  recently  in  a  Sermon  on  the  Psalms,  contained  in  a  volume  on  tho 
Prayer  Book  ;  and  in  a  Sermon  on  the  character  of  Balaam,  in  a  volume 
on  the  Old  Testament.     I  should  not  have  spoken  of  some  still  more 
casual  references  to  it,  in  a  book  on  the  Prophets  and  Kings  of  the  Old 
Testament,  published  this  year,  if  a  particularly  kind  critic  in  the  Non- 
conformist, for  whose  commendations,  and  still  more  for  whose  friendly 
reproofs,  I  desire  to  express  my  gratitude,  had  not  called  upon  me  to 
develope  more  clearly  my  hints,  and  to  state  my  whole  mind  on  the  subject 
of  Inspiration      I  would  request  him  to  accept  this  Essay  as  an  answer 
to  that  courteous  challenge. 


GREEK  INSPIRATION.  245 

what  we  mean  ourselves  and  what  others  mean,  is  to  examine 
our  uses  of  the  name  which  we  feel  to  be  so  sacred. 

1.  We  find  the  singers  of  the  old  world  asking  some  divine 
power  to  inspire  them.  In  the  last  age  this  language  of  theirs 
was  not  much  heeded.  It  had  been  so  much  abused  by  the 
vulgarest  writers  who  adopted  classical  fashions  (I  should  be 
scarcely  correct  in  saying  classical  forms,)  that  it  was  supposed 
never  to  have  had  any  signification.  We  have  learnt  to  do 
more  justice  to  the  men  whom  we  profess  to  admire.  "We  feel 
that  they  would  be  worthy  of  no  admiration,  that  they  could 
not  have  won  any,  if  they  had  not  been  simple  and  sincere. 
If  they  were  merely  using  a  trade  phrase  when  they  asked  a 
Muse  or  a  God  to  teach  them,  they  must  have  had  the  fate  of 
similar  traders  in  later  times.  The  rest  of  their  speech  is  genu- 
ine and  transparent ;  this  part  of  it  cannot  be  less  so.  It  must 
express,  not  their  loosest  convictions,  but  their  strongest. 

2.  But  whatever  force  we  allow  to  this  sense  of  the  word, 
are  we  to  suppose  it  has  any,  even  the  slightest  relation,  to  the 
sense  in  which  religious  men  speak  of  the  Inspiration  of  the 
Bible  ?  A  number  of  voices  all  around  us  are  saying,  "  There 
is  no  real  distinction  between  these  books  and  any  others. 
Inspiration  is  predicable  of  both,  in  the  same  sense.  It  can  be 
but  a  question  of  degree,  and  therefore  if  you  feel  yourselves 
at  liberty  to  exercise  all  kinds  of  criticism  upon  the  methods, 
principles,  and  authority  of  the  one,  you  cannot  fairly  debar 
yourself  or  any  one  else  from  the  same  liberty  in  respect  of  the 
other."  We  hear  again  a  number  of  voices  saying,  "  You 
exercise  that  liberty  at  your  peril.  The  Bible  must  be  looked 
upon  as  the  inspired  book.  To  put  it  on  the  same  ground 
with  any  other,  is  to  deprive  us  of  all  foundation  for  our  faith 
now,  for  our  hopes  in  the  world  to  come." 

3.  But  again :  religious  men,  the  most  earnestly  religious 
men,  speak  of  themselves  as  taught,  actuated,  inhabited  by  a 
Divine  Spirit.     They  declare  that  they  could  know  nothing 


246  FANATICS.      THE  ENGLISH  CHURCH. 

of  the  Scriptures  except  they  were  under  this  guidance.  Is 
this  the  Inspiration  which  we  attribute  to  the  writers  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  or  is  that  different  from  it  in  kind  ? 

4.  A  number  of  religious  teachers  actually  claim  to  be 
inspired  men,  and  circles  of  admiring  disciples  believe  them  ; 
nay,  crowds  run  after  them,  in  the  faith  that  they  have  a  divine 
commission.  Here  is  another  fact  which  well  deserves  to  be 
examined,  a  very  serious  fact  indeed.  It  is  one  which  the  per- 
emptory decrees  of  our  schools  have  certainly  not  cleared  up. 
They  have  not  prevented  the  fanatics  from  appearing  by  their 
maxim  respecting  inspiration.  They  have  not  done  much  to 
weaken  or  to  explain  their  influence.  If  fanaticism  is  to  be 
checked,  we  must  understand  ourselves  a  little  better  about  its 
nature  and  cause. 

5.  But  the  Church  of  England,  which  many  religious  people 
say  is  not  spiritual  enough,  whose  sons  boast  that  it  is  expressly 
opposed  to  fanaticism,  has  used  this  very  word  "  Inspiration,1' 
and  has  claimed  it  for  these  sons,  apparently  in  a  fuller,  larger 
sense  than  either  of  the  classes  to  which  I  have  last  referred. 
On  the  Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter,  we  ask  u  Him  from  whom 
all  good  things  do  come,  that  by  His  holy  inspiration  we  may 
think  those  things  that  be  good,  and  by  His  merciful  guiding 
may  perform  the  same."  Every  Sunday  morning,  and  on 
every  Festival-day,  we  ask,  in  our  Communion  Service,  that 
11  the  thoughts  of  our  hearts  may  be  cleansed  by  the  inspiration 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  so  that  we  may  perfectly  love  God,  and 
worthily  magnify  His  name."  Here  are  petitions  which  con- 
cern not  a  few  specially  religious  men  or  some  illuminated 
teachers,  but  the  whole  flock ;  to  say  the  least,  all  the  miscel- 
laneous people  who  are  gathered  together  in  a  particular  con- 
gregation. Are  we  paltering  with  words  in  a  double  sense  ? 
When  we  speak  of  Inspiration  do  we  mean  Inspiration  ?  When 
we  refer  to  the  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  in  our  sermons, 
ought  we  to  say,  *  Brethren,  wo  beseech  you  not  to  suppose 


ST.  PAUL  IN  GREECE.  247 

that  this  Inspiration  at  all  resembles  that  for  which  we  have 
been  praying.  They  are  generically,  essentially  unlike.  It 
is  blasphemous  to  connect  them  in  our  minds ;  the*  Church  is 
very  guilty  for  having  suggested  the  association."  These  are 
the  questions  we  have  to  discuss;  let  us  not  shrink  from  them, 
or  dispose  of  them  lightly  and  frivolously,  as  if  the  hearts  of 
tens  of  thousands  were  not  interested  in  them. 

1.  When  St.  Paul  came  into  the  different  cities  of  Greece, 
he  found  men  whose  traditions  told  them  of  an  Inspiration, 
which  poets,  prophets,  priestesses,  received  from  some  divine 
source.  These  traditions  had  facts  for  their  basis.  Men  were 
actually  seen  to  be  carried  far  above  the  level  of  their  ordinary 
thoughts ;  they  spoke  as  they  did  not  speak  when  they  were 
buying  and  selling ;  their  words  entered  into  other  men's  minds 
and  worked  mightily  there.  There  was  no  denying  this  ;  the 
experience  of  men  established  it  beyond  all  controversy.  And 
I  think  the  conscience  of  men,  expressed  in  these  traditions, 
was  entitled  to  bear  its  testimony  as  wrell  as  their  experience. 
That  conscience  said,  "  This  power  is  something  which  we 
cannot  measure  and  reduce  under  rules.  It  works  in  us,  but 
it  is  above  us.  We  may  in  some  sort  control  its  exercises,  but 
we  are  the  subjects  of  it.  It  must  come  from  some  higher 
source.     A  God  must  have  imparted  it  to  us." 

The  next  and  more  awful  question  was,  "  What  God,  what 
is  his  name?''''  When  they  tried  to  consider  this  question,  a 
number  of  new  facts  forced  themselves  upon  their  observation. 
A  man  under  the  influence  of  some  extraordinary  afflatus, 
might  be  raised  to  a  higher  and  nobler  state,  might  be  an  inven- 
tor of  arts,  might  overcome  his  inclinations  to  pleasure,  might 
do  heroic  acts  for  the  benefit  of  the  world,  might  have  intuitions 
of  the  future.  Or  he  might  be  merely  inebriated,  maddened, 
might  exhibit  wild  contentions,  might  in  the  worst  and  grossest 
sense,  lose  the  mastery  of  himself.  The  theory  of  a  divine 
Inspirer  must,  they  thought,  explain  both  these  discordant 


1»  CHARACTBB  OF    HIS  TEACHING. 

experiences.  Every  one  who  reflects  upon  the  legends  which 
cluster  about  the  name  of  Dionysus,  and  the  various  grotesque 
forms  whicn  embodied  them  lor  the  eye,  will  understand  bow 
the  heart  and  imagination  of  the  Greek  were  exercised  by  this 
problem. 

How  might  we  suppose  that  St.  Paul  would   act, — how  do 
we  know  that  he   did  act, — when  he  brought  his  Gospel  to  a 
people  with  these  notions  and  traditions  %i     If  he  had  told  them 
that  all  the  thoughts  of  their   ancestors  were  unmeaning  and 
ridiculous,  he  would  have  found  a  willing  ami   prepared  audi- 
ence in  Athens  and  Corinth.     Their  sophists  had  told  them  so 
before ;   the  inclination  of  their  minds  was  to  accept  the  state- 
ment.    They  would  indeed  have  continued  to  bow  down  to  all 
manner  of  idols;   why  not'/  they  were  beautiful  objects;   wor- 
ship might  do  them  some  good  ;  who  could  tell  ?     ki  The  peo- 
ple  certainly   needed   such    im.  it    was    philosophical    to 
humor  the  vulgar  taste;  a  very  high  philosophy   might  see  a 
meaning  in  it."     JJut  St.  Paul  ^id  not  take  this  com  The 
one  which  he  did  take  must  have  tended   to   awaken   that  old 
faith  out  of  its  sleep ;   not  to  smother  it  in  its  sleep.     Tor  he 
spoke  of  gifts  of  healing;  gifts  of  speech  ;  gifts  of  government. 
Jle  spoke  of  these  gifts  as  proceeding  from  a  Terson.   lie  spoke 
of  His  presence  as  the  great  gift  of  all.     He  spoke  of  that  gift 
as  coming  to  men,  because  a   Man  had  appeared  in  the  world, 
and    had  ascended  on  high,  who  was  the  Son  of  God.     [Such 
language  could  not  but  associate  itself  with  all  the  thoughts 
which  they  had  before  of  Inspirations  and  an  Inspirer.     We 
know  that  it  did,  for  most  of  the  confusions  in  the  Corinthian 
Church  arose  from  the  old  dreams  of  a  Uionysiac  inspiration. 
And   how   are   the  two  distinguished  r"      There  would   have 
been  nothing  to  distinguish  them,  there  womd  have  been  no 
witness  against  idol  worship  or  demon  worship,  if  St.  Paul  had 
said,   "  Those  powers  which   you  referred  to  Dionysus,   or 
Apollo,  or  iEsculapius,  are  not  what  we  are  permitted  and 


EFFECT  OF  IT.  249 

enabled  to  exercise ;"  for  the  understanding  would  still  have 
demanded,  "  What  then  is  the  origin  of  those  V  But  if  he  was 
able  to  say, "  What  you  have  attributed  to  a  demon,  to  a  being 
whom  you  have  fashioned  out  of  a  set  of  phenomena  which  you 
could  not  account  for,  I  come  to  vindicate  for  the  Father  of 
Spirits,  for  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;"  this  would 
indeed  have  been  the  most  triumphant  testimony  he  could  bear, 
that  the  reign  of  the  old  Gods  was  over,  and  that  the  one  Lord 
who  had  spoken  to  a  poor  band  of  exiles  from  Egypt,  was  now 
asserting  His  dominion  over  the  world.  And  so — and  only  so 
— it  wrould  be  apparent,  why  He  who  lifted  men  into  a  nobler 
and  freer  life,  could  not  mean  man  to  be  the  victim  of  a  frenz}7, 
or  of  mere  animal  impulses.  The  history  which  the  Apostle 
told  was  the  history  of  the  gradual  discovery  of  man's  relation 
to  God,  and  consequently  of  man's  spiritual  condition.  That 
a  Divine  Spirit  should  come  to  meet  and  raise  a  spirit  hard 
pressed  with  animal  inclinations,  to  give  it  the  power  of  main- 
taining its  own  position,  of  looking  up  to  Him  in  whose  like- 
ness it  was  made,  apart  from  whom  it  had  no  life,  was  so  rea- 
sonable, was  so  necessary  a  corollary  from  the  previous  part 
of  the  message,  that  the  heart  of  the  hearers  anticipated  it,  was 
eager  to  recognise  it.  But  then  whatever  counteracted  this 
inlluence,  whatever  led  the  animal  to  assert  that  supremacy  to 
which  it  had  been  proved  to  have  no  claim,  must  be  either  the 
turbulent  and  rebellious  movement  of  the  lower  nature,  or  the 
action  of  some  evil  power,  speaking  directly  to  the  spirit  and 
aiming  to  destroy  it. 

The  opposition  between  the  divine  and  either  the  animal  or 
the  devilish,  which  had  been  confounded  with  it  in  the  old 
mythology,  was  manifested  just  in  proportion  as  those  very 
powers  and  gifts,  which  man  had  felt  before  he  could  not 
ascribe  to  himself,  were  ascribed  to  the  Spirit  of  God,  the 
Spirit  of  Order  and  Truth.  But  it  is  equally  evident  that 
there  was  another  great  and  broad  distinction  betwreen  the  old 

11* 


250  LAW  BEFOHE  INSPIRATION. 

t 

and  new  belief.  The  first  had  been  partial,  narrow,  peculiar. 
It  had  tried  to  explain  how  extraordinary  men,  or  men  in 
some  extraordinary  crisis  of  their  lives,  were  able  to  do  strange 
acts,  to  speak  unusual  words.  St.  Paul's  Gospel  was  human 
and  universal.  It  explained  indeed  the  influence  of  seers  and 
prophets;  it  asserted  the  existence  of  special  endowments;  it 
put  all  honor  upon  distinct  callings.  But  first,  it  asserted  that 
the  Spirit  was  necessary  for  all  human  beings,  and  was  intend- 
ed for  all.  And  this  human  gift  it  did  not  degrade  below7  the 
other,  as  being  a  secondary,  inferior  exhibition  of  that  which 
the  great  man  obtained  in  its  highest  form.  The  Divine  Spirit, 
the  Spirit  of  Love,  who  was  promised  to  all,  was  described  as 
the  source  and  spring  of  those  peculiar  endowments  which 
were  given  to  this  and  that  man  as  lie  willed.  They  wore  to 
'rem  their  gifts  mainly  as  witn-  Of  Hi-  presence, 

2.  Hut  if  St.  Paul  asserted  that  the  inspiration  which  the 
( [reeks  bad  attributed  to  false  ( lodfl  was  derived  only  from  the 
true,  what  kind  of  dignity  did  he  claim  lor  the  inspiration  of 
hisownseer8and  prophets?  J  apprehend  that  he  could  say  noth- 
ing more  glorious  fur  them  than  this,  that  they  had  spoken  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  (ihost;  that  they  had  consistently 
disclaimed  all  wisdom  and  power  for  themselves  ;  that  they  had 
been  in  the  most  orderly  and  divine  manner,  preparing  the  way 
for  that  manifestation  of  Him  which  had  been  promised  to 
their  children,  and  had  at  length  been  granted.  Inspiration  was 
not  the  first  idea  in  the  mind  of  a  Jew,  as  it  was  perhaps  in 
that  of  a  Greek.  The  Law  took  precedence  of  the  Prophets; 
the  Covenant  was  before  either.  The  Lord  had  said  to 
Abram,  "  Get  thee  out  of  thy  father**  house,  to  a  land  that  1 
tci/l  show  thee" — had  promised  "  that  in  him  and  Ids  seed  the 
families  on  the  earth  should  be  blessed.''1  The  Lord  had  declar- 
ed to  Moses  His  great  name,  had  sent  him  to  be  the  deliverer  of 
His  people,  had  given  them  through  him  commandments,  and 
statutes,  and  ordinances.     The  Righteous  King  and  Judge, 


THE   PROPHETS'  INSPIRATION.  251 

who  claims  men  as  His  servants,  who  teaches  them  to  judge 
between  right  and  wrong,  is  revealed  first.  The  prophet  who 
speaks  in  His  name  is  still  mainly  the  witness  of  Unchange- 
able Right,  and  of  judgments  that  shall  distinguish  between  it 
and  the  wrong.  And  the  Word,  who  comes  to  him,  and  speaks 
to  him,  makes  him  aware  how  he  and  his  people  are  related  to 
that  Lord  God  whom  the  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain; 
makes  him  understand  that  there  is  a  King  on  the  holy  hill  of 
Zion,  One  whom  he  can  call  his  Lord,  and  to  whom  the  Lord 
is  saying,  "  Sit  Thou  on  my  right  hand,  till  I  make  Thine  ene- 
mies Thy  footstool"  The  revelation  of  this  mysterious  Teach- 
er, this  Divine  King,  is  what  he  looks  for;  he  gains  glimpses' 
of  the  steps  and  method  of  His  manifestation  through  his 
own  sorrows  and  the  trials  of  his  country ;  he  is  confident  that 
some  day  God  will  be  fully  declared,  and  that  in  that  day  man, 
His  image,  will  attain  his  proper  glory. 

But  how  is  it  that  the  prophet  is  able  to  enter  into 
these  divine  communications  ?  What  is  there  in  him  different 
from  other  men  which  makes  him  capable  of  them  ?  What 
mean  these  stirrings  within  him,  this  sense  of  a  power  which 
seems  at  times  more  than  he  can  bear,  this  mighty  influence  to 
which  lie  must  yield,  which  does  not  suffer  him  to  speak  till  it 
has  humbled  and  crushed  him ;  which,  when  he  does  speak, 
makes  him  know  that  his  words,  though  they  have  come  out  of 
the  depths  of  his  own  heart,  are  the  Lord's,  and  that  they  be- 
long as  much  to  all  his  countrymen  as  to  him  1  This  is  surely 
inspiration.  But  who  is  the  Inspirer  ?  How  can  He  be  so 
near  to  him,  to  his  own  very  self?  For  this  power  is  not 
merely  or  chiefly  one  which  elevates  and  transports.  It  does 
not  merely  take  hold  of  some  faculty  or  impart  some  energy. 
It  carries  on  the  most  searching,  intimate,  terrible  converse  with 
him  who  uses  the  faculty,  who  wields  the  energies. 

The  answer  to  this  demand  came  gradually,  slowly,  like  the 
answer  to  the  other."  St.  Paul  believed  that  it  had  come  at  last 


252  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

most  effectually.  John  the  Baptist  preached  of  repentance 
for  the  remission  of  sins.  But  he  preached  of  one  coming  after 
him,  that  was  before  him,  who  should  baptize  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  with  lire.  Jesus  (so  Paul's  companion  tells  us)  had 
received  the  Holy  Ghost  in  his  baptism,  when  He  was  pro- 
claimed to  be  the  Son  of  God.  In  the  power  of  that  Holy  Ghost, 
he  resisted  the  Tempter,  healed  the  broken-hearted,  preached 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  proclaimed  the  Jubilee  of  the  Lord. 
Then  when  he  was  going  away,  He  spoke  of  a  Spirit  of  Truth 
whom  He  would  send  to  His  disciples  from  the  Father,  who 
would  abide  with  them,  who  would  brin£  all  things  to  their  re- 
membrance,  who  would  show  them  plainly  of  the  Father.  He 
had  spoken  continually  in  bid  earlier  discourses  of  a  Father 
who  was  both  His  and  theirs  ;  all  these  words  seemed  intended 
to  receive  their  interpretation  from  what  He  said  to  them  now 
of  a  Comforter.  The  disciples  were  perplexed.  How  could 
they  have  another  to  supply  His  place?  How  could  He  be 
with  His  Father,  and  yet  manifest  Himself  to  them  1  What 
could  lie  mean  by  saying  that  He  and  His  Father  would  come 
to  them,  and  abide;  with  them?  He  told  them  to  wait  for  the 
promise  of  the  Father;  then  they  would  know  what  was  now 
dark  to  them.  AVhen  He  had  ascended,  and  had  led  then),  by 
that  strange  discipline  I  spoke  of  in  a  former  Basay,  to  bell 
that  in  some  wonderful  way  they  were  even  then  to  ascend 
with  Him,  and  be  with  Him  where  He  was.  He  again  told 
them  to  wait;  He  could  not  satisfy  their  desire  to  know  whe- 
ther the  kingdom  would  be  at  that  time  restored  to  Israel;  li>' 
could  only  assure  them  that  they  should  be  endued  with  pow- 
ers from  on  high.  On  the  Festival  day,  St.  Luke  says,  the 
sound  of  the  mighty  rushing  wind  was  heard  ;  the  cloven 
tongues  sat  upon  the  Apostles;  they  spoke  as  the  spirit  gave 
them  utterance ;  the  multitude  heard  them  in  their  own 
tongues  proclaiming  the  wonderful  works  of  God.  Herein  St. 
Paul   sawr  the  revelation   of  Him  who  hau  inspired  the  Pro- 


REVELATION  OF  THE  INSPIRER  2b  3 

phets  ;  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  promise ;  the  assurance 
that  the  Father  of  all  was  indeed  claiming  the  sons  of  men, 
Jews,  Greeks,  barbarians,  as  His  children.  So  soon  as 
he  learnt  this  truth,  he  became  the  herald  of  a  new  dispensa- 
tion. This  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  was  that  which  the 
world  had  been  waiting  for  so  long.  He  had  taught  prophets 
to  speak,  He  had  enabled  them  to  suffer,  He  had  given  them 
glimpses  of  a  glory  which  their  children  should  see,  in  which 
they  themselves  should  be  sharers.  Now  it  might  be  pro- 
claimed aloud.  "  The  baptism  which  John  foretold  is  for  you 
all.  '  Because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit 
of  His  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father.'  "  All 
gifts  ever  bestowed  upon  prophets,  were  the  gifts  of  a  Father 
to  His  children,  the  foretastes  of  that  adoption  and  emancipa- 
tion which  were  awaiting  men,  when  their  schooling  under  the 
elements  of  the  world  should  be  completed. 

"What  a  magnificent  idea,  then,  must  St.  Paul  have  had  of 
those  books,  which,  in  his  Pharisaical  days,  had  seemed  to  him 
merely  objects  of  fear,  and  of  a  kind  of  worship  ;  excuses  for 
Jewish  self-exaltation  !  How  every  old  teacher  will  have 
started  into  life,  when  he  contemplated  him  no  longer  as  a 
mere  utterer  of  dark  sentences,  which  the  Scribes  copied  out 
and  made  darker  by  their  expositions,  but  as  endued  with  that 
same  Divine  Spirit  which  was  enabling  him  to  be  a  teacher  of 
the  Gentiles;  of  whom  he  could  dare  to  say  to  each  Church,, 
"He  dwells  with  you;"  to  each  member  of  a  Church,  "  He 
has  made  your  body  His  habitation  !"  What  a  grand  proces- 
sion those  old  teachers  formed,  each  one  of  whom  was  leading 
men  onwards  to  that  discovery  of  the  Inspirer !  What  was 
there  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world  together  that  could  compare 
with  them,  not  in  their  distinct  worth  alone  or  chiefly,  but  in 
their  continuity,  their  orderly  succession,  their  harmony ;  their 
worth  as  witnesses  to  the  divine  method  of  government  in 
their  own  day,  a  method   which   must  be  the  same  in  all  after 


254  THE  EVANGELICAL  PROTEST. 

generations ;  their  worth  as  foreseers  of  that  which  had  now 
come  to  pass !  What  would  the  history  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  be  but  a  collection  of  inexplicable  fragments,  if  there 
were  not  this  revelation  to  unite  them  and  make  them  a 
whole  ! 

But  if  this  was  the  effect  of  his  New  Testament  wisdom, 
how  must  he  have  feared  any  relapse  into  that  state  of  mind 
from  which  he  had  emerged;  how  must  lie  have  dreaded  it 
for  his  converts,  and  for  those  who  should  come  after  them  ! 
Can  we  conceive  any  view  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, — either  of 
those  he  had  known  from  a  child,  or  those  he  was  contribut- 
ing to  form, — which  would  have  seemed  to  him  more  dreadful, 
than  one  which,  under  color  of  exalting  them,  should  set  aside 
their  own  express  testimony  concerning  the  unspeakable  gift 
which  God  had  conferred  on  His  creatures?  If  he  would  have 
turned  with  indignation  from  those  in  later  days  who,  pretend- 
ing to  honor  the  Bible,  forbid  men  to  read  it,  lest  it  should 
awaken  the  questionings  in  their  hearts,  which  it  is  meant  to 
awaken,  and  which  a  Church  instead  of  stifling  should  encoun- 
ter, and  satisfy ;  would  he  have  felt  less  indignaut  with  those 
who,  talking  of  the  Bible  as  their  only  religion,  and  only  rule 
of  life,  prevent  it  from  being  either,  by  saying  that  its  Inspi- 
ration has  no  relation  to  that  of  the  wrriters  whose  dark  say- 
ings it  illuminates,  to  that  of  the  human  beings  it  is  intended  to 
educate  and  console  ? 

3.  This  Scribe  notion  of  the  Bible  was  stoutly  resisted  by 
the  Evangelical  teachers  of  the  last  age.  Francke  and  Spell- 
er have  been  referred  to  again  and  again  by  their  admirers  in 
this  country,  as  faithful  witnesses  against  the  hard  German 
doctors  of  their  day,  who  looked  upon  the  Bible  as  a  mere  col- 
lection of  dry  facts  and  dogmas,  and  who  supposed  that  it 
could  be  understood  without  the  aid  of  such  a  spirit  as  dwelt 
in  the  writers  of  it.  Our  own  Venns  and  Newtons  took  up 
the  same  language  ;  the  orthodoxy  as  well  as  the  liberalism  of 


SUFFERERS  OF  TWO  KINDS.  255 

their  contemporaries  was  offensive  to  them,  precisely  because 
both  seemed  equally  to  separate  the  Bible  from  the  conflicts 
and  experiences  of  Christian  men.  The  testimony  which  they 
bore,  I  hope,  is  not  extinct, — has  not  merely  given  birth  to  a  set 
of  phrases  about  "  head  knowledge,"  or  to  charges  of  "  want  of 
vital  and  experimental  acquaintance  with  divine  things," — 
phrases  which  any  one  can  learn  by  heart,  and  which  may 
often  be  used  most  glibly  by  those  who  are  half  conscious  that 
they  have  a  very  near  and  personal  application.  In  solitary 
chambers,  among  bedridden  sufferers,  the  words  of  the  old 
men  have  still  a  living  force.  The  Bible  is  read  there  truly  as 
an  inspired  book ;  as  a  book  which  does  not  stand  aloof  from 
human  life,  but  meets  it;  which  proves  itself  not  to  be  the 
work  of  a  different  Spirit  from  that  which  is  reproving  and 
comforting  the  sinner,  but  of  the  same.  It  is  of  quite  infinite 
importance  that  the  confidence  in  which  these  humble  students 
read,  should  not  be  set  at  nought  and  contradicted  by  deci- 
sions and  conclusions  of  ours.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that 
we  should  be  able  to  say,  that  they  are  not  practising  a  delusion 
upon  themselves;  that  they  arenot  amiable  enthusiasts  ;  that  they 
are  believing  a  truth  and  acting  upon  it.  But  we  cannot  say  this 
if  we  must  adopt  the  formulas,  which  some  people  would  force 
upon  us.  Either  we  must  set  at  nought  the  faith  of  those  who 
have  clung  to  the  Bible,  and  found  a  meaning  in  it  when  the  doc- 
tors could  not  interpret  it,  or  we  must  forego  the  demand 
which  we  make  on  the  consciences  of  young  men,  when  we 
compel  them  to  declare  that  they  regard  the  Inspiration  of  the 
Bible  as  generically  unlike  that  which  God  bestows  on  His 
children  in  this  day. 

I  know  well  how  this  last  remark  will  be  met.  "  Do  you 
not  know,"  some  one  will  say,  "  that  the  simple  Christians  you 
speak  of  have  the  most  unfeigned,  unquestioning  reverence  for 
the  Bible  ?  do  you  not  know,  also,  that  those  young  men  of 
whose  consciences  you  are  so  tender,  avoid  explicit  statements 
respecting  the  Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  precisely  because  they 


256  DOUBTERS. 

are  full  of  neological  doubts  and  theories  about  it,  which  never 
entered  into  the  heads  of  the  others,  and  would  utterly  shock 
them  if  they  did  ?  What  folly  or  dishonesty  to  compare  eases 
so  dissimilar!"  Now  I  am  perfectly  ready  to  admit,  that,  in 
a  great  many  cases,  perhaps  in  most,  scruples,  which  may  be 
called  neological,  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  objections  which  the 
younger  members  of  Evangelical  families  make  to  the  doc- 
trines respecting  the  Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  which  their 
elders  require  them  to  accept.  But  I  venture  to  think,  first, 
that  it  is  neither  foolish  nor  dishonest  to  protest  against  the 
invention  of  tests  to  meet  a  particular  case,  which — supposing 
they  do  accomplish  their  particular  object,  and  supposing 
that  is  a  good  one — also  may  promote  another  which  is  decid- 
edly and  evidently  bad.  I  should  have  thought  that  the  his- 
tory of  heresies  might  have  taught  us  that,  whenever  a  dogma 
has  been  devised  merely  to  fit  and  contradict  some  denial 
which  is  prevalent,  it  has  almost  always  been  the  parent  of 
some  other  denial  quite  as  dangerous.  But  secondly,  I  should 
like  to  be  informed  how  these  n  jioal  tendencies  have  arisen 
in  persons  apparently  so  well  secured  by  their  education  against 
them.     ]  to  me  that  this  is  generally  the  history  of  their 

growth.  These  young  men  were  informed  early  that  no  true 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  could  be  had,  unless  God's  Spirit  illu- 
minated the  page  and  their  hearts.  It  was  intimated  to  them 
also,  (or  this  was  what  they  gathered  from  the  lessons  they 
received,)  that  they  did  not  at  present  possess  this  illumina- 
tion. In  the  meantime  they  were  instructed  in  what  v 
called  the  external  evidence,  which  proved  that  these  records 
were  of  divine  authority.  Some  of  this,  evidence  might  be 
good,  such  as  would  pass  muster  in  any  English  court  of  jus- 
tice ;  some  might  be  tolerable,  such  as  would  be  listened  to  if 
there  were  nothing  to  overweigh  it  on  the  other  side ;  some 
was  decidedly  weak  and  worthless.  But  the  best  could  not 
put  in  the  least  claim  to  authority  ;  it  would  have  abandoned 
all  its  peculiar  boast  if  it  had.     All  was  therefore  open  to 


MODE  OF  DEALING  WITH  DOUBTERS.  257 

legitimate  examination  and  criticism ;  that  which  could  not 
hold  water  must  give  way ;  that  which  was  worthy  would  often 
be  suspected  for  its  sake.  Very  soon  the  book  itself,  the  mer- 
its and  dignity  of  which  had  been  staked  upon  this  issue, — 
which  the  youth  had  been  distinctly  told  that  he  was  not  to 
receive,  merely  because  his  parents  or  his  country  received  it, 
which  he  had  been  told  also  that  he  could  not  }7et  receive  upon 
any  distinct  witness  of  his  own  spirit,  sank  nearly — never  quite 
— to  the  level  of  the  arguments  by  which  it  had  been  recom- 
mended to  him.  He  discloses  his  perplexities,  he  asks  whether 
this  or  that  passage  in  the  book  is  not  less  tenable  than  the 
rest :  he  is  told  that  he  must  take  all  or  none  :  the  whole  is 
inspired ;  to  doubt  it  is  to  renounce  the  word  of  God, — to 
renounce  God  himself.  This  course  I  hold  to  be  inhuman  and 
ungodly,  one  which  will  infallibly  make  the  doubter  what  you 
accuse  him  of  being.  It  is  possible  to  pursue  quite  a  different 
method,  one  that  may  make  your  children  feel  that  the  Bible 
is  their  book  as  it  was  their  fathers',  and  that  no  modern  wis- 
dom will  supply  the  place  of  it.  You  may  show  them  that 
there  is  -divinity  here  and  inspiration  there  ;  you  may  lead  them 
to  confess  that  there  are  passages  which  speak  to  the  heart 
within  them,  which  awaken  a  heart  that  was  asleep  ;  you  may 
make  them  know, — if  you  believe  it  yourself, — that  there  is  a 
Divine  "Word  who  is  enlightening  them,  that  there  is  a  Divine 
Spirit  who  is  seeking  to  inspire  them.  You  may  then  bring 
them  gradually,  with  many  tears  and  much  joy,  to  trace  that 
"Word  and  that  Spirit  not  only  here  and  there,  but  connecting, 
reconciling  those  various  documents  which  seemed  to  them  so 
inconsistent  with  themselves,  explaining  the  facts  of  the  uni- 
verse with  wrhich  they  appeared  to  be  at  war.  Be  sure,  how- 
ever, that  before  you  can  take  one  step  in  this  course,  you 
must  give  up  the  attempt  to  impose  a  theory  of  Inspiration 
upon  them,  nay,  you  must  very  gravely  consider  whether  the 


258  THE  ARGUMENTUM  AD  HOMINEM. 

one  which  you  huld    is  compatible  with  that  belief  in  Inspira- 
tion which  belonged  to  prophets  and  apostles. 

I  foresee  that  some  critic  will  say  to  me,  "  It  is  a  cunning- 
method  to  put  forward  these  young  men,  and  to  pretend  so 
much  sympathy  with  them.  Every  one  can  see  that  you  are 
really  pleading  your  own  cause.  You  have  some  secret  unbelief 
about  the  books  of  the  Bible,  which  makes  you  shrink  from 
this  tenet  of  Inspiration.  We  are  glad  to  know  it.  The  screw 
should  always  be  applied  where  there  are  any  symptoms  of 
tenderness  or  wincing." 

I  wish  my  friend  the  critic  could  look  me  as  steadily  in  the 
face,  while  he  is  making  these  observations,  as,  if  he  stood 
before  me,  I  would  look  him  in  the  face  while  I  replied  to  them. 
1  would  tell  him  that  I  am  conscious  of  just  as  much  unbelief 
about  the  books  of  the  Bible,  as  1  am  about  the  farts  of 
nature  and  of  my  own  existenee.  I  am  conscious  of  unbelief! 
about  those  facts;  oftentimes  they  seem  to  me  quite  incredi- 
ble. I  overeome  this  unbelief,  and  acquire  what  I  think  is  a 
truer  state  of  mind,  when  I  turn  to  the  Bible  as  the  interpre- 
tation of  them.  The  more  difficulties  I  have  found  in  myself 
and  in  the  world,  the  more  help  has  it  been  to  me.  The 
Bible  is  not  the  cause  of  my  perplexities,  but  the  resolver  of 
them.  Of  course  there  are  a  multitude  of  things  in  it  which  f 
do  not  understand  ;  a  multitude  more  in  myself  which  I  do  not 
understand.  But  this  has  been  my  experience  hitherto,  and 
each  year,  almost  each  day,  that  experience  is  strengthened. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  wishing  to  get  rid  of  those  documents 
which  the  traditions  of  my  country  teach  me  to  hold  divine 
because  they  belong  to  some  bygone  condition  of  things  with 
which  modern  civilization  has  nothing  to  do,  I  feel  the  neeessity 
of  them  inereasing  with  every  step  whieh  civilization  tak 
with  every  new  complication  of  feelings  and  circumstances  in 
which  I  am  myself  involved.  Books  of  the  Bible  which  were 
lying  in  shadow  for  me,  in  which  I  could  see  little  meaning, 


ANSWER  TO  IT.  259 

have  come  forth  into  clearness,  because  I  met  with  hard  pas- 
sages in  myself  or  in  society  which  I  could  not  construe  with- 
out their  help.  And  I  have  found  this  to  be  the  case  more 
and  more  in  proportion  as  I  have  rested  my  faith  on  the  God 
whom  the  Bible  declares  to  me,  and  not  upon  my  conclusions 
respecting  the  authenticity  of  different  books.  "  These  conclu- 
sions may  be  sound, — I  hope  they  are ;  but  they  may  not  be 
sound.  My  understanding  is  very  liable  to  error ;  and  how 
can  those  who  require  me  to  consider  the  Bible  as  alone  free 
from  error,  encourage  me,  at  the  same  moment,  to  transfer  that 
immunity  to  myself?  This  they  must  do,  if  they  will  not  let 
me  first  of  all  accept  the  canon  of  Scripture  as  given  to  me, 
and  secondly,  rise  gradually  to  believe,  not  on  the  authority 
of  any  Samaritan  woman  or  Church  doctor,  but  because  I 
have  heard  Christ  for  myself,  speaking  to  me  out  of  this  book, 
and  speaking  to  me  in  my  heart,  and  therefore  know  that  He  is 
indeed  that  Saviour  who  should  come  into  the  world.* 

*  A  distinction  is  often  hinted  at,  sometimes  formally  taken,  between 
Facts  and  Doctrines.  "You  may,"  it  is  said,  "  believe  that  the  Spirit 
guides  a  man  into  a  knowledge  of  principles.  But  do  you  accept  the 
facts  of  the  Bible  ?  Do  you  look  upon  them  as  divinely  communicated  to 
the  seer  ? '  Any  one  who  considers  doctrines  as  I  have  considered  them 
in  these  Essays  finds  it  exceedingly  hard  to  separate  them  from  facts  ; 
doctrines  and  principles  he  supposes  to  be  the  meaning  of  facts.  If,  then, 
I  am  asked  whether  I  receive  the  transcendent  facts  of  Scripture,  those 
which  offer  most  occasion  to  disbelief,  I  appeal  to  what  I  have  written 
here.  If  I  am  asked  whether  I  believe  the  ordinary  facts  of  Scripture, 
e.  g.  that  such  a  city  was  taken  at  such  a  time?  I  answer,  that  when  I  find 
a  man  so  free  from  biblical  prepossessions  as  Niebuhr  assuming  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah  to  be  better  authorities  about  such  facts  than  any  he  knew 
of,  I  am  surprised  that  our  divines  and  religious  people  should  be 
so  very  eager  to  get  confirmation  of  the  testimonies  in  sacred  books 
from  profane  authorities,  as  if  they  felt  insecure  of  them  till  then,  a 
sentiment  I  cannot  the  least  understand  or  share  in;  that,  believ- 
ing the  writers  of  the  Bible  to  have  been  possessed  by  the  Spirit  of 
Truth,  I  am  sure  they  will  have  more  shrunk  from  fictions,  and  have 


260  VERBAL    INSPIRATION. 

On  his  way  to  this  discovery,  a  man  may  have  to  pass,  as 
numbers  have  passed  before  him,  through  terrible  struggles 
and  contradictions  of  mind.  But  you  believe  it  is  true,  do 
you  not  ?  You  think  God  has  revealed  it,  do  you  not  ?  You 
believe  He  lives,  do  you  not?  If  so,  lie  can  perhaps  take 
about  as  good  care  of  His  truth,  His  book,  His  creatures  and 
the  universe,  as  you  or  I  can.  He  can  teach  us  without  a  the- 
ory of  Inspiration,  which  is  taking  the  place,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
in  very  many  minds,  not  only  of  faith  in  Inspiration,  but  of 
faith  in  Him. 

For  the  different  forms  in  which  this  theory  expresses  itself, 
I  care  little.  If  any  one  likes  to  talk  of  a  verbal  Inspiration,  if 
that  phrase  conveys  some  substantial  meaning  to  his  mind,  by 
all  means  let  him  keep  it.  He  cannot  go  further  than  I  should 
in  calling  for  a  laborious  and  reverent  attention  to  the  very 
words  of  Scripture,  and  in  denouncing  the  unreasonable  notion 
that  thoughts  and  words  can  be  separated — that  the  life  which, 
is  in  one  must  not  penetrate  the  other.  If  any  one  likes  to 
speak  of  'plenary  Inspiration,  I  would  not  complain  ;  I  obi 

been  more  careful  to  avoid  mixing  them  with  facts,  than  other  men ; 
that  it  seems  to  me  far  safer,  more  scriptural,  more  godly,  to  suppose  they 
did  take  palvs,  and  that  the  Spirit  taught  them  to  take  pains,  in  sifting 
facts,  than  to  suppose  that  they  were  merely  told  the  facts ;  that  I  most 
assuredly  should  not  give  up  the  faith  in  God  which  they  have  cherished 
in  me,  if  I  found  they  had  made  mistakes  ;  and  I  have  too  much 
respect  and  honor  for  those  who  use  the  strongest  expressions  about  the 
certainty  of  every  word  in  the  Scriptures,  to  suppose  that  they  would. 
I  will  not  believe  any  Christian  man,  even  upon  his  own  testimony,  who 
tells  me  that  he  should  cease  to  trust  in  the  Son  of  God,  because  he  found 
chronological  or  historical  misstatements  in  the  Scriptures,  as  great  as 
ever  have  been  charged  against  them  by  their  bitterest  opponents.  If  I 
did  suspect  him  of  such  hollowness,  I  should  pray  for  him  that  he  might 
never  meet  with  any  travellers  or  philologers  who  confirmed  the  state- 
ments of  Scripture  ;  none  but  such  as  denied  them  or  mocked  at  them ; 
because  the  sooner  such  a  foundation  as  this  is  shaken,  the  better  it  will 
be  for  him. 


FANATICS.  261 

to  the  Inspiration  which  people  talk  of,  for  being  too  empty — 
not  for  being  too  full.  These  forms  of  speech  are  pretty  toys 
for  those  who  have  leisure  to  play  with  them,  and  if  they  are 
not  made  so  hard  as  to  do  mischief,  the  use  of  them  should 
never  be  checked.  But  they  do  not  belong  to  business.  They 
are  not  for  those  who  are  struggling  with  life  and  death  ;  such 
persons  want,  not  a  plenary  Inspiration  or  a  verbal  Inspiration 
— but  a  book  of  Life  ;  and  they  will  know  that  they  have  such 
a  book  when  you  have  courage  to  tell  them  that  there  is  a 
Spirit  with  them,  who  will  guide  them  into  the  truth  of  it. 

4.  "  But  if  these  words  are  openly  proclaimed,  what  a  plen- 
tiful crop  of  ranters  and  fanatics  we  shall  have  !  "What  crowds 
will  run  after  them ;  for  who  will  then  have  a  right  to  deny 
their  inspiration  ?v  A  dreadful  prospect !  But  is  it  a  pros- 
pect ? — have  we  not  the  fanatics  and  ranters  already  ?  Do 
they  not  draw  disciples  after  them  ?  You  have  tried  to  weaken 
their  influence  by  telling  them  that  the  Bible  was  the  Inspired 
book ;  that  it  is  utterly  absurd  and  extravagant  for  men  in 
these  days  to  call  themselves  inspired ;  that  the  same  course 
has  been  tried  in  former  times,  and  has  always  led  to  ruin. 
There  is  great  apparent  justification  for  this  method — it  has 
been  used  often  by  very  ingenious  and  sagacious  men,  with 
whom  it  ought  to  have  succeeded,  if  it  was  to  succeed.  But 
it  has  not  succeeded.  It  has  not  cured  the  immediate  evil 
which  it  was  meant  to  cure ;  it  has  left  the  seeds  which  pro- 
duced that  evil  always  ready  for  fresh  germination.  And  what 
is  worse,  this  kind  of  treatment  has  destroyed  precious  seeds 
which  God  has  planted  in  men's  hearts,  and  which  they  can- 
not afford  to  lose.  You  long  to  expose  the  impostor,  the 
mountebank,  who  is  deceiving  a  number  of  poor  simple  souls. 
But  do  you  desire  that  the  earnest,  cordial  faith,  which  has 
been  called  forth  in  them,  while  they  are  following  him,  should 
be  taken  away  from  them  ?  Do  you  desire  that  those  fervent 
hopes,   kindled  for  the  first  time  in  men  who  have  been  crawl- 


262  HOPES  DISAPPOINTED. 

ing  all  their  days  on  the  earth  and  eating  dust,  should  be  put 
out  for  ever?  Do  you  think  nothing  of  the  desolation  which 
they  will  feel,  when  they  find  that  he  in  whom  they  trusted 
has  failed  them  utterly,  and  that  what  looked  the  most  real  of 
all  things,  was  but  a  dream?  Oh  !  is  there  nothing  dreadful 
in  the  unbelief,  the  prostration  of  soul,the  wretchlessness  of  un- 
clean living,  which  follows  such  disappointments  and  disco- 
veries ? 

"  But  they  must  come,"  you  say,  "  howT  can  we  help  it  ?" 
We  could  have  done  this.  We  could  have  told  the  deceiver 
that  he  was  not  exaggerating  in  the  least  the  blessings  of  which 
a  man  is  capable,  and  which  God  is  willing  to  bestow  on  him. 
We  could  have  told  him  that  instead  of  a  mere  power  of  utter- 
ance, which  it  is  evident  he  poe  s}  and  for  which  he  will 
have  to  give  an  account,  the  Spirit  who  has  endued  him  with 
that  power  is  near  him,  claiming  him  as  a  servant;  near  him, 
and  near  every  one  of  those  too  whom  he  is  making  his  tools. 
We  might  say  t<>  him,  "If  you  believe  this,  there  will  come 
into  your  mind  such  an  awe,  such  a  sense  of  the  tearfulness  of 
trifling  with  this  gift  and  blessing, — there  will  come  such  a 
desire  to  learn,  such  a  fear  of  the  responsibility  of  ruling  over 
other  men,  such  a  conviction  that  you  can  only  do  it  without  a 
crime,  when  you  give  up  yourself  to  the  Spirit  of  Truth — that 
nothing  will  seem  to  you  so  great  a  reason  for  penitence  and 
shame,  as  that  you  have  dared  to  exalt  yourself  on  the  plea  of 
possessing  that,  which  if  you  had  possessed  it  rightly,  would 
have  entirely  humbled  you."  And  if  with  this,  we  teach  the 
people  that  the  Spirit  of  God  has  come  down,  not  on  the  great 
prophet  only,  but  for  the  whole  flock  of  Christ,  to  keep  them 
from  pride  and  self-conceit  and  delusion,  and  to  guide  them 
into  all  truth,  I  believe  we  shall  do  our  best  that  the  chaff  in 
their  minds  may  be  separated  from  the  wheat,  and  may  be 

burned  up. 

5.  For  this  principle,  we  of  the  Church  of  England  are,  I 


THE  THREE  METHODS.  263 

conceive,  specially  bound  to  bear  testimony.  The  collects  I 
have  quoted,  and  the  tenor  of  our  prayers,  which  is  in  confor- 
mity with  them,  lay  us  under  this  obligation.  The  function 
which  our  orthodox  men  in  the  last  century  claimed  for  us,  of 
being  witnesses  against  fanaticism,  is  a  most  honorable  func- 
tion. God  grant  that  we  may  be  able  to  fulfil  it!  But  we 
cannot  fulfil  it  in  the  way  they  dreamed  of, — by  setting  at 
nought  all  belief  in  spiritual  operations,  by  referring  all  that  is 
spoken  of  them  in  Scripture  to  the  age  of  the  Apostles.  That 
plan  has  been  tried  ;  none  ever  failed  so  completely  and  shame- 
fully. We  cannot  do  it  by  the  course  which  our  modern  evan- 
gelical school,  renouncing  the  maxims  of  their  forefathers,  seem 
inclined  to  recommend, — the  course  of  setting  up  the  Bible  as 
a  book  which  encloses  all  that  may  lawfully  be  called  Inspira- 
tion. That  plan  is  under  trial,  and,  if  we  may  judge  by  pre- 
sent indications,  it  is  likely  to  produce  a  general  alienation 
from  the  Bible,  a  widely  spread  unbelief  in  Christianity.  There 
is  another  method  ;  may  we  have  faith  to  follow  it  out !  It  is 
that  of  saying  to  our  countrymen,  of  every  order  and  degree, 
"  The  Father  of  all  has  sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman, 
*  that  you  may  receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  He  Iras  baptized 
you  with  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  ;  and  that  Spirit  wrould  be  cry- 
ing in  your  hearts,  Abba,  Father.  That  Spirit  would  be 
leading  you  into  fellowship  with  all  your  brethren.  That  Spi- 
rit would  be  making  you  humble,  teachable,  courageous,  free. 
That  Spirit  would  claim  all  things  for  you ;  common  books 
and  the  chief  book,  Nature  and  Grace,  earth  and  heaven." 

It  may  seem  to  some  Unitarian  listener,  who  had  hoped  that 
I  was  going  to  join  him  in  cursing  several  of  his  enemies,  that 
I  have  blessed  them  these  three  times.  He  might  expect  from 
me  some  more  rational  theory  about  Inspiration  than  that 
which  is  current  among  our  Evangelical  and  High  Church 
teachers.     He  might  think  my  apparent  indifference  to  their 


26  1  THE  rOPULAR  NOTIONS  SEMI-UNITARIAN. 

opinions,  promising.  But  I  have  at  last  come  to  a  conclusion 
which  will  strike  him  as  far  more  distant  from  his  own  than 
theirs  is.  I  have  appeared  to  protest  against  current  theories 
of  Inspiration,  because  they  fail  to  assert  the  actual  presence 
of  that  Spirit,  whom  it  has  been  one  of  the  standing  articles  of 
his  creed  not  to  confess. 

I  cannot  deny  this  charge.  I  do  think  that  our  theories 
of  Inspiration,  however  little  they  may  accord  with  Unitarian 
notions,  have  a  semi-Unitarian  character  ;  that  they  are  de- 
rived from  that  unbelief  in  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  latent  in 
us  all,  but  which  was  developed  and  embodied  in  the  Unita- 
rianism  of  the  last  century.  I  have  not  been  able  to  conceal 
this  opinion  in  the  present  case  or  in  other  cases.  I  have  not 
tried  to  conceal  it ;  for  I  am  persuaded  that  we  must  go  fur- 
ther from  Unitarianism,  if  we  would  embrace  Unitarians;  that 
we  shall  never  know  them  as  brothers,  or  love  them  as  bro- 
thers, till  we  bring  out  our  own  faith  more  fully,  and  disen- 
gage it  from  some  of  the  elements  of  distrust  which  we,  in 
imitation  of  them,  have  allowed  to  mingle  with  it.  Especially 
do  I  look  forward  to  this  result,  however  distant  and  improba- 
ble it  may  seem,  from  a  full  assertion  of  that  portion  of  our 
creed  which  refers  to  the  Person  of  the  Comforter.  I  do  see 
in  that,  such  a  bond  of  loving  fellowship  for  all  men — such  a 
breaking  down  of  sect-barriers — that  I  long  to  speak  of  it  even 
if  it  be  with  the  most  stammering  tongue,  to  those  who  have 
been  divided  from  us.  I  have  not  entered  upon  that  subject 
here.  Till  the  question  of  Inspiration  had  been  fairly  consid- 
ered, I  saw  no  hope  of  being  able  to  express  my  thoughts 
fully  and  clearly  upon  it ;  for  nothing  seems  to  me  so  danger- 
ous, as  that  the  Bible  should  be  used  to  hinder  the  reception 
of  a  truth  which  can  alone  make  its  words  intelligible,  and, 
apart  from  which,  its  Inspiration,  and  all  inspiration,  is  the 
dream  of  a  shadow. 

!>tit   as  the  subject  of  this  Essay  is  not  meivly  inspiration, 


COMPLIMENTS  TO  APOSTLES.  265 

but  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  I  should  like  to  say  one  word 
on  a  method  of  treating  that  book  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  new  Unitarian  school;  The  members  of  that  school  readily 
recognise  the  inspiration  of  Apostles  and  of  Prophets.  Where 
their  fathers  honored  the  letter,  they  perceive  a  divine  mind  in 
the  old  seers.  But  they  do  not  half  so  much  accept  them  as 
teachers.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  last  writer  of  an  article  in 
one  of  their  newspapers  or  reviews  looks  upon  himself  as  a 
much  more  enlightened  mau  than  St.  Paul  or  St.  John,  as  one 
who  can  afford  to  compliment  them  upon  the  approximations 
which  they  often  made  to  the  wisdom  Which  he  has  attained. 
I  discover  this  tendency  in  men  who  I  think  really  wish  to  be 
modest  and  self-distrusting — who  are  driven  into  what  must 
strike  us  as  insufferable  arrogance,  not  willingly,  but  by  the 
necessity  of  their  position.  They  defend  that  position  as  being 
the  only  one  which  it  is  possible  for  men  of  science  and  men 
of  progress  to  occupy.  If  earnest  search  is  always  rewarded 
with  new  discoveries,  how  can  we  acquiesce  in  the  decrees  of 
the  past  ?  If  the  world  is  always  advancing,  is  not  a  third-rate 
man  of  this  day  wiser  than  the  greatest  of  ages  gone  by  ?  Such 
questions  are  not  in  general  fairly  met.  The  understanding  is 
staggered  by  them ;  though  I  believe  the  conscience  in  every 
man  revolts  at  the  conclusion  to  which  they  lead. 

The  process  of  thought  by  which  I  have  myself  been  delivered 
from  them  is  something  of  this  kind.  Physical  science,  it  has 
seemed  to  me,  presumes  a  world  which  exists  and  which  we 
did  not  create.  Science  was  impossible  while  men  glorified 
their  own  thoughts  and  speculations  more  than  that  which 
nature  presented  to  them.  It  has  become  firm  and  safe  since 
they  have  humbled  themselves  into  the  condition  of  learners. 
This  has  been  the  secret  of  discovery,  this  has  been  the  secu- 
rity for  progress.  Is  it  altogether  otherwise,  I  have  asked 
myself,  in  moral  science?  Is  self  worship  the  posture  of  mind 
which  is  most  favorable  to  that,  as  self-abnegation  is  the  great 
12 


266  SCIENCE  AND  DISCOVERY. 

pre-requisite  in  the  other?     Shall  we  discover  because  we 
believe  in  our  powers  of  discovery  ?     Will  the  ages  to  come 
learn  from  us,  if  we  teach  them  that  all  wisdom  is  concentrated 
in  us  ?    I  have  not  the  least  reason  to  think  so.    I  do  not  meet 
with  any  man  who  does  think  so  consistently.     I  often  see 
those  who  ought  to  hold  this  opinion,  if  their  other  statements 
were  true,  clinging  to  the  past  with  great  affection  and  rever- 
ence, nay,  not  seldom  disposed  to  appeal  to  it  with  even  a  fond 
idolatry,  when  they  find  themselves  pressed  down  and  tor- 
mented by  the  maxims  of  their  own  age.     And  so  I  have  been 
forced  by  the  inconsistencies  of  these  modern  teachers  when  I 
liked  them  best,  by  the  vanity  which  made  me  despair  of  all 
good  from  them  when  they  were  following  their  theory  to  its 
consequences,  to  inquire  whether  that  old  notion  of  a  Bible,  a 
book  of  books,  a  book  which  sets  forth  a  revelation  that  has 
been  made  of  God  and  His  relations  to  man,  a  revelation  that 
is  complete  and  cannot  receive  additions  from  our  research 
— is  unfavorable  to  science,  to  discovery,  to  progress;    nay, 
may  not  be  the  necessary  protection  of  all  three.     If  Science 
concerns  that  which  is  fixed  and  absolute,  that  whicM  is,  then 
to  believe  that  God  has  declared  Himself,  that  He  has  with- 
drawn the  veil  which  hides  Jlini  from  His  creatures,  that  He 
has  in  a  wonderful  and  orderly  history  enabled  us  to  see  what 
He  is,  and  what  He  is  to  us,  what  those  eternal  laws  and  prin- 
ciples are  which  dwell  in  Himself  and  which  determine  His 
dealings  with  us,  is  to  believe  that  there  is  a  divine  and  human 
Scieme,  that  we  are  not  left  to  the  anticipations  or  guesses  of 
one  age  or  of  another.     If  He  who  thus  reveals  Himself  is 
light,  there  must  be  perpetual  openings  for  Discover?/  the  more 
we  meditate  upon  His  revelation,  the  more  we  compare  it  with 
our  own  experiences  and  the  experiences  of  the  world.    Instead 
of  being  cut  off  from  such  discoveries  by  acknowledging  that 
we  are  not  the  authors  of  them,  we  enter  upon  just  such  a 
steady  and  gradual  method  for  arriving  at  them  as  the  physical 


I 


PROGRESS.  267 

student  entered  on  when  he  exchanged  the  eyllogisms  of  the 
study  for  the  induction  of  the  laboratory.  If  all  Progress  con- 
sists in  the  advancing  further  into  light  and  the  scattering  of 
mists  which  had  obstructed  it,  the  Bible  contains  the  promise 
of  such  Progress,  a  promise  which  has  been  most  fulfilled  when 
it  has  been  most  reverently  listened  to,  when  men  have  gone 
to  it  with  the  greatest  confidence  and  hope.  I  complain  of  our 
modern  religious  world,  not  for  cherishing  this  confidence  or 
this  hope,  but  for  abandoning  it  and  robbing  others  of  it.  If 
we  come  to  the  Bible  as  learners,  it  has  more  to  teach  us  yet 
than  we  can  ask  or  think.  If  we  believe  that  we  know  all  that 
is  in  it  and  merely  resort  to  it  for  sentences  and  watchwords  to 
confirm  our  own  notions  and  to  condemn  our  brethren,  God 
will  show  us, — He  is  showing  us, — how  great  the  punishment 
to  us  and  to  our  children  must  be,  for  abusing  the  unspeakably 
precious  treasure  with  which  He  has  endowed  us. 


ESSAY    XIV. 


ON  THE  PERSONALITY  AND  TEACHING  OF  THE 

HOLY  SPIRIT. 


I  surrosE  there  is  nothing  which  is  causing  so  much  unbelief 
here  and  everywhere,  as  a  comparison  of  the  hopes  which 
Scripture  seems  to  hold  out  of  the  effects  that  should  follow 
the  revelation  of  Christ,  with  the  history  of  the  world  since  He 
appeared  in  it.  I  apprehend  this  difficulty  is  felt  much  more 
strongly  in  our  day  than  in  former  days.  There  are  several 
reasons  why  it  must  be  so.  We  have  been  led  to  consider  the 
different  portions  of  history  more  in  relation  to  each  other  than 
our  fathers  did.  The  records  of  the  old  Pagan  world  have 
been  brought  side  by  side  with  those  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Great  differences  have  been  observed  in  them,  no  doubt;  more 
differences  than  were  perceived  formerly.  But  though  all  new 
inquiries  may  show  us  more  clearly  what  crimes,  what  contra- 
diction of  moral  principles,  what  superstition  existed  in  the 
countries  whose  literature  we  have  been  most  taught  to  prize, 
they  show  us  also,  that  our  ancestors  were  not  mistaken  in 
speaking  of  the  patriotism  and  nobleness  of  particular  men  in 
those  countries,  of  the  ideal  which  they  6et  before  themselves, 

(268) 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  WORLD.  269 


nay,  of  the  homage  which  was  paid  to  that  ideal  by  the  body 
of  thetr  countrymen, — proving  it  to  be  national,  not  individual. 
"  What  other  conclusion  does  the  history  of  the  later  world 
suggest  ?  There,  too,  is  crime,  contradiction  of  moral  princi- 
ples, fearful  superstition.  There,  too,  are  facts  which  show 
that  many  have  set  before  themselves  a  high  standard,  and 
have  done  various  acts  in  conformity  with  it ;  there,  too,  we 
see  that  their  contemporaries,  who  often  persecuted  them  and 
cast  out  their  names  as  evil,  yet  confessed  that  their  aim  was 
the  right  aim  ;  there  we  find  proofs  that  they  were  not  creating 
a  rule  for  themselves,  but  following  one  which  would  have  been 
good  for  all  men.  Where  is  the  great  alteration  ?  Are  not 
all  things  much  as  they  were  from  the  beginning  ?  In  some 
respects,  is  there  not  a  change  for  the  worse  ?  Does  not  Chris- 
tendom confess,  by  the  pains  which  it  has  4aken  that  its  sons 
should  study  the  lore  of  the  old  Pagan  world,  that  something 
is  to  be  gained  from  that  lore  which  is  not  to  be  found  among 
its  own  treasures  ?  Have  not  some  crimes,  against  which  the 
old  world  protested,  been  canonized  by  what  has  been  called 
the  faith  of  the  new  ?  Have  not  some  of  the  old  virtues  been 
disparaged,  even  trampled  under  foot,  by  the  professors  of  the 
same  faith  ?" 

There  is  another  cause  for  the  new  strength  which  these 
reflections  have  gained  in  our  time.  If  we  thought,  as  many 
divines  in  the  last  century  thought,  that  the  appearance  of  an 
illustrious  Teacher,  a  great  Messiah,  in  the  world,  who  pro- 
mulgated a  sublime  code  of  morals,  and  did  certain  extraordi- 
nary acts  to  illustrate  its  truth,  is  all  that  was  signified  by  the 
New  Testament  Dispensation  and  the  name  "  Christianity,"  we 
might  not  be  under  any  great  obligation  to  explain  why  that 
Teacher  had  not  been  much  more  heeded  than  those  who  pre- 
ceded Him,  why  the  announcement  of  His  code  has  not 
ensured  obedience  to  it,  why  His  miracles  may  be  acknow- 
ledged as  singular  occurrences  for  the  time  which  witnessed 


270  CONFESSION  OF  A  SPIRIT. 

them,  and  yet  may  have  left  no  distinct  practical  impression 
upon  human  life.     But  we  have  abandoned, — I  think,  have 
been  compelled  to  abandon, — this  apparently  secure  position. 
The  hearts  of  suffering  men  have  demanded  from  the  book 
which  we  told  them  contained  the  charter  of  their  inheritan 
— have  found  in  it, — information  which  these  statements  did 
not  convey.     They  have  asked  whether  God  had  merely  laid 
down  rules  for  them,  without  giving  them  any  power  to  follow 
the  rules ;  whether  He  had  bidden  them  love  Him  and  their 
neighbors,  without  taking  account  of  the  tremendous  inclina- 
tion they  had  to  care  only  for  themselves,  or  supplying  them 
with  any  means  to  overcome  it.     They  have  craved  for  some 
influence  over  themselves,  a  quickening,  transforming  influence. 
And  they  have  thought  that  the  Bible  very  distinctly  met  these 
necessities  of  theirs.     In  the  New  Testament  especially,  they 
have  discovered  continual  reference  to  a  Spirit  who  should 
work  in  men  to  do  those  acts  which  they  were  least  able  of 
themselves  to  do,  who  should  help  their  infirmities,  who  should 
teach  them  what  they  wanted,  and  how  they  might  ask  for  it; 
who  should  knit  together  those  whom  place,  time,  jealoue 
had  divided.     They  have  perceived  that  the  promise  of  this 
Spirit  is  put  forth  as  the  most  obvious  and  characteristic  pro- 
mise of  the  Christian  dispensation.     The  very  name  of  Christ, 
they  have  learnt,  indicates  that  He  was  Himself  endowed  or 
anointed  with  a  Spirit;    the  preaching  of  His  forerunner  and 
all  His  own  preaching  declared  that  He  had  received  it  Him- 
self, to  the  end  that  He  might  bestow  it  upon  His  disciples 
then  and  in  ages  to  come.     Churchmen  have  discovered  that 
the  language  of  our  formularies,  as  well  as  of  the  Scriptures,  is 
in  accordance  with  these  convictions.     Vv  e  have  learned  to 
speak  habitually  of  a  dispensation  of  the  Spirit;  we  have  said 
that  our  Lord's  coming  in  the  flesh  would  have  effected  very 
little,  that  His  moral  teaching  would  have  been  necessarily 
inoperative,  if  He  had  not  carried  out  His  own  assurance,  and 


CONSEQUENT    DEMANDS  ON  US.  271 

sent  His  Spirit  to  enlighten  and  renew  hearts  which  would 
have  been  otherwise  dark  and  lifeless. 

But  if  wTe  adopt  this  language,  we  ought  to  understand  that 
we  give  every  one  a  right  to  ask  us  some  searching  questions. 
They  will  take  this  form  : — 

"  A  Divine  Spirit,"  you  tell  us,  "  has  been  given  to  men, 
given  for  the  very  purpose  of  moulding  their  lives  into  confor- 
mity with  the  law  which  has  been  proclaimed  to  them.  Surely, 
then,  you  are  bound  to  show  some  evidence  of  that  conformity. 
It  cannot  suffice  merely  to  complain  of  men's  disobedience  or 
incredulity.  Do  you  mean  there  has  not  been  a  power  wThich 
could  overcome  these?  It  cannot  avail  to  talk  of  a  world,  or 
flesh,  or  Devil.  Do  you  mean  that  these  are  stronger  than 
God  ?" 

There  are  several  ways  of  evading  this  difficulty,  of  which 
Christian  teachers  and  students  have  not  failed  to  avail  them- 
selves. "  We  can  point  you,"  they  have  said,  to  fruits  of  faith 
and  love,  wrhich  can  only  have  been  produced  by  a  divine  influ- 
ence ;  we  can  show  you  that  those  who  have  done  the  best 
deeds  and  cherished  the  best  thoughts  have  traced  them  to  this 
influence.  More  than  this  we  are  not  bound  to  do.  Nay,  we 
are  bound  to  draw  a  broad  line  between  these  and  the  multf- 
tude  who  do  not  confess  any  spiritual  influence,  who  are  not 
the  subjects  of  any." 

To  a  reader  of  the  New  Testament  this  statement  must  be 
most  unsatisfactory.  The  Apostles  speak  of  the  holy  men  of 
old  as  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  no  one  who  reads  the  words 
of  those  men  can  doubt  that  they  referred  every  true  thing  in 
themselves  to  a  divine  source.  Yet  the  Apostles  teach  us,  and 
they  teach  us,  that  they  were  looking  forward  to  a  blessing 
which  had  not  been  given  them,  and  which  later  ages  should 
inherit.  This  expectation,  as  I  showed  in  my  last  Essay,  pointed 
not  merely  to  the  manifestation  of  a  great  king,  but  also  to  the 
manifestation  of  Him  from  whom  their  thoughts  and  impulses 
had  proceeded. 


272  THE  BIBLE, 

The  Christian  kingdom  cannot  be  described  as  a  dispensa- 
tion of  the  Spirit  if  these  anticipations  were  not  fulfilled.  The 
Apostles  must  have  deceived  their  hearers  if  the  condition  of 
those  who  lived  after  Christ's  glorification,  was  not  better  in 
this  respect  than  that  of  those  who  waited  for  His  coming. 
The  story  of  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pente- 

-t,  and  of  the  signs  which  accompanied  it,  and  of  the  preaching 
which  followed  it,  must  be  thrown  aside  altogether,  if  no  great 
blessing  was  then  vouchsafed  to  mankind, — if  a  few  here  and 
there  may  vindicate  and  appropriate  to  themselves  a  treasure, 
which  the  true  men  who  understood  its  nature  best  were  impa- 
tient to  acknowledge  as  universal. 

Some  of  those  who  could  not  acquiesce  in  so  limited  a  view 
of  the  language  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
as  this,  have  suggested  that  since  the  holy  Scriptures  are  the 
work  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  complete  Bible  may  perhaps  be 
that  common  possession  which  distinguishes  the  now  world 
from  the  old.  To  possess  a  divine  history  which  was  growing 
for  centuries,  in  its  order  and  fulness,  so  that  all  the  steps  of  it 
may  be  traced,  and  the  issue  to  which  it  was  leading  distinctly 
apprehended,  i«  no  doubt  an  incalculable  advantage.  But,  if 
what  I  said  in  the  last  Essay  is  true,  we  lose  altogether  the 
6ense  and  symmetry  of  this  history  unless  we  look  upon  the 
revelation  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  men  as  that  which  explains 
the  past  to  us  and  binds  it  to  the  future.  Nay,  according  to 
its  own  showing,  we  have  not  the  capacity  of  judging  of  its 
particular  passages,  and  of  their  relation  to  each  other,  unless 
we  partake  of  the  Spirit  by  which  its  writers  were  guided.  So 
that  to  put  the  book  as  the  substitute  for  the  gift  of  which  it 
testifies,  or  as  including  it,  is  as  flagrant  a  contradiction  as  we 
can  possibly  fall  into. 

A  popular  ecclesiastical  historian  of  the  last  century,  quite 
alive  to  this  inconsistency,  and,  at  the  same  time,  aware  of  the 
wretched  divisions  and  horrible  atrocities  which  he  should  have 


SPIRITUAL  NATURE  OF  MAN.  273 

to  record,  has  resorted  to  the  hypothesis  that  there  have  been 
certain  "lapses  "  of  the  Spirit  in  different  periods,  like  in  their 
principle,  though  not  in  their  outward  tokens,  to  that  of  which 
"Whitsuntide  reminds  us.  Such  lapses  he  thought  would  account 
for  the  revival  of  moral  light  and  life  after  long  ages  of  super- 
stition and  degeneracy  ;  for  such  events  as  the  Reformation  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  for  others  nearer  to  his  own  day,  to 
which  he  attached  a  similar,  and  almost  equal,  significance.  I 
shall  not  now  inquire  whether  his  theory  will  account  for  these 
facts,  or,  if  it  does,  whether  there  are  not  others  equally 
demanding  interpretation,  for  which  it  does  not  account.  I 
would  only  remark  that  the  phrase,  occasional  "  lapses  "  of  the 
Spirit,  cannot  be  an  exact  counterpart  of  that  which  our  Lord 
uses  when  He  speaks  of  a  Spirit  who  shall  abide  with  His  dis- 
ciples for  ever,  and  that  what  we  have  to  consider  is,  whether 
such  a  description  corresponds  with  the  experience  of  Christen- 
dom, or  contradicts  it. 

Finally,  in  our  own  day,  a  number  of  persons  fancy  they 
have  discovered  a  sufficient  equivalent  for  the  doctrine  of 
Scripture  respecting  a  divine  Spirit  imparted  to  man,  in  the 
belief  that  man  himself  has  a  spiritual  nature, — that  all  his 
powers,  energies,  affections,  show  him  to  be  more  than  a  crea- 
ture of  flesh  and  blood.  The  doctrine  of  the  Creed,  they  say,  is 
only  an  old  theocratic  mode  of  enunciating  a  truth  which  belongs 
to  the  consciousness  of  all  men,  and  of  which  some  races  have 
had  a  much  keener  intuition  than  the  Jews.  As  I  have  already 
maintained  that  the  G  ospel  and  Epistles  assert  not  merely  that 
man  has  a  spiritual  nature,  but  that  he  is  a  spiritual  being,  as 
I  have  spoken  of  our  Lord's  ascension  according  to  the  ordi- 
nary view  of  it,  as  being  the  practical  vindication  of  our  spirit- 
ual position  and  spiritual  capacities,  I  certainly  cannot  refuse  to 
connect  the  doctrine  of  the  coming  of  a  divine  Comforter  with 
that  human  principle.     St.  John  connects  them ;  for  he  says, 

"  The  Spirit  was  not  yet  given,  because  that  Jesus  was  not  yet 

12* 


274  MONT  ANUS. 

glorified."  But  both  he  and  St.  Paul  take  the  greatest  possible 
pains  to  distinguish  them.  A  mighty  gift,  according  to  the  one, 
was  bestowed  upon  God's  creature  as  soon  as  that  creature 
was  capable  of  receiving  it.  "  The  Spirit,"  according  to  the 
other,  "  witneaseth  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  Sons  of 
God." 

It  wrould  have  been  obviously  unfitting  that  I  skould  reckon 
amongst  these  methods  of  explaining  the  words  of  our  Lord  and 
His  Apostles  that  to  which  a  Phrygian  heretic  of  the  second 
century  resorted,  when  he  affirmed  that  the  Comforter  whom 
our  Lord  promised  wTas  a  bodily  teacher,  who  was  to  fill  up  the 
gaps  in  his  doctrine.     But  since  that  proposition,  even  accom- 
panied with  the  assertion  that  Montanus  himself  was  the  ful- 
riller  of  the  promise,  hud  plausibility  enough  to  secure  the  sujh 
port  of  80  able  a  man  as  Tertullian,  and  since  it  has  reappeared 
in  various  shapes  ever  aiooe,  and  was  never  more  likely  to  appear 
than   now,  I  think    it  is  worth  while   to  consider  why  it  has 
med  to  those  who  entertained  it,  to  answer  more  exactly  to 
our   Lord's  language   than   any  mere   notion  of   an  invisible 
intluenc< 

Such  an  influence  is  continually  spoken  of  in  Scripture.  The 
symbols  of  "  rain  "  and  "  dew  "  serve  beautifully  to  describe 
its  silent,  penetrating,  life-giving,  orderly  nature.  But  what  is 
there  in  such  symbols  which  corresponds  to  these  words  ? — 

"  And  when  lie  is  come,  He  will  reprove  the  world  of  sin, 
and  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment:  of  Sin,  because  they 
believe  not  on  me;  of  Righteousness,  because  I  go  to  my 
Father,  and  ye  see  me  no  more ;  of  Judgment,  because  the 
Prince  of  this  world  is  judged." 

All  here  is  personal  in  the  strictest  sense.  I  will  send  Him, 
lie  shall  come,  He  shall  reprove.  Is  a  Teacher,  a  Helper,  a 
Sustainer,  like  moisture  or  vapor  ?  I  apprehend,  then,  that  if 
a  man  has  been  much  vexed,  as  Tertullian  with  his  fierce  Afri- 
can nature  was,  by  Gnostical  Teachers,  who  have  no  associa- 


CAUSE  OF  HIS  HERESY.  275 

tions  with  Spirit,  except  these, — who  do  habitually  confound 
it  with  vapor,  and  do  not  even  attach  to  vapor  that  sense  of 
power  which  the  sight  of  a  locomotive  engine  suggests  to  us, 
— he  is  very  likely  to  adopt  a  coarse  material  counterpart  of 
reality,  and  as  the  punishment  of  his  intemperate  folly,  to  be- 
come the  victim  of  some  feeble  impostor.  A  great  lesson  lies, 
I  think,  in  that  painful  experience.  If  Christ  has  shown  that 
the  body  which  He  took  did  not  constitute  His  personality,  but 
that,  because  He  was  a  Person,  because  He  was  the  Son  of 
God,  he  could  raise,  redeem,  and  glorify  His  body ;  if  He  has 
shown  a  man  not  to  be  a  person  because  he  has  a  body,  but 
that  he  only  claims  and  realizes  his  personality  then  when  he 
maintains  his  relation  to  God,  and  holds  his  body  as  a  subject; 
if  the  Evil  Spirit  is  not  less  personal  because  he  comes  to  us 
and  came  to  Christ  in  no  bodily  shape  ;  if  we  can  only  worship 
the  living  and  true  God  as  a  Person  and  a  Father ;  then  I 
believe  we  shall  accept  the  words  which  I  have  quoted  in  the 
most  literal  sense  when  we  take  them  in  their  most  spiritual 
sense.  There  is  indeed  a  deep  question  growing  out  of  this 
concerning  the  relation  of  the  Person  of  the  Comforter  to  the 
Son,  who  says  He  will  send  Him, — to  the  Father,  from  whom 
He  is  said  to  proceed.  That  question  I  reserve  for  a  future 
Essay.  In  this  I  propose  only  to  inquire  whether,  if  we  acknow- 
ledge this  Spirit  as  a  Person,  and  if  we  accept  our  Lord's 
account  of  His  work,  we  shall  not  have  a  solution  of  the  diffi- 
culty with  which  I  started — the  only  interpretation  of  the  dark 
as  well  as  of  the  bright  passages  in  the  History  of  Christen- 
dom. 

1.  1  suppose  no  one  doubts  that  the  feelings  about  Sin  in 
the  modern  world  have  been  very  different  from  any  which  can 
be  traced  in  the  old.  I  have  little  need  to  make  out  a  proof 
of  this  fact,  because  it  will  be  rather  eagerly  accepted  as  a 
concession  by  those  who  hold  that  Christianity  has  operated 
injuriously  on  the  welfare  of  mankind.     They  will  say,  "  It  is 


276  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN. 

certainly  true  that  there  has  been  a  terror  in  the  minds  of 
men  respecting  a  number  of  practices  and  habits  which  seemed 
very  innocent  to  Pagans,  comparatively  innocent  even  to  J  evvs. 
There  has  been  a  fear  of  teaching,  tasting,  handling,  which 
belonged  in  an  immeasurably  less  degree  to  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans. A  dark  shadow  has  been  cast  over  the  face  of  nature, 
and  over  social  life."  I  shall  not  now  inquire  to  what  extent 
these  charges  are  true,  because  J  have  considered  the  subject 
in  my  second  Essay  ;  and  I  have  had  occasion  in  every  suc- 
ceeding one  to  make  use  of  the  conclusions  at  which  I  arrived 
in  the  course  of  it.  1  spoke  of  an  evil  which  lies  beneath  the 
transgression  for  which  laws  ailix  punishment,  beneath  the 
habits  and  temperament  to  which  the  more  ethical  philosopher 
confines  himself.  This  evil  lies  close  to  myself;  I  become  con- 
scious of  it  when  I  think  of  myself;  1  cannot  refer  it  to  the 
operation  of  outward  circumstances;  I  am  rather  obliged  to 
confess  it  as  the  cause  of  anything  wrong  which  affects  me  in 
them.  I  said  that  undoubtedly  this  sense  of  personal  evil  had 
set  men  upon  devising  a  multitude  of  schemes  for  avoiding  its 
present  anguish,  for  escaping  from  the  terrors  of  which  it 
seemed  pregnant  in  the  future,  for  conciliating  the  Power  whom 
it  might  have  offended.     If  then  it  is  true  that  thi  Be   of 

personal  evil  did  not  exist  to  at  all  the  same  extent  before  the 
coming  of  Christ  as  it  has  existed  since:  that  though  we  mav 
trace  clear  anticipations  of  it  in  some  of  the  great  thinkers  of 
the  old  world,  as  well  as  in  the  popular  belief,  yet  that  for  the 
most  part  both  are  occupied  with  the  less  radical  and  inward 
forms  of  evil,  it  is  quite  to  be  expected  that  the  superstitions 
of  the  latter  time  should  have  had  oftentimes  a  worse  character 
that  those  of  the  former,  that  the  wickedness  should  be  of  a 
more  conscious  kind,  that  the  man  should  be  in  more  direct 
open  war  with  himself,  with  his  fellows,  and  with  his  Creator. 
All  this  sounds  very  shocking  and  very  confirmatory  of  that 
which   the  objector  urges.      And  yet  I  maintained  that  it  is 


SENSE  OF  DELIVERANCE.  277 

good  for  a  man  thus  to  know  what  is  going  on  within  him ; 
thus  to  see  himself  stript  bare  of  appearances  and  plausibilities ; 
thus  to  be  prevented  from  transferring  to  accidents,  which  he 
cannot  remedy,  what  may  be  cured  when  he  sees  it  and  con- 
fesses it  as  his  own.  And  I  urs^ed  that  all  the  mischief  of  those 
contrivances  which  the  man  himself  has  imagined,  or  his  priest 
suggested,  for  the  sake  of  soothing  his  pain,  lies  in  this,  that 
they  throw  him  back  into  a  region  of  phantoms  and  shadows, 
out  of  which  this  dreadful  experience  is  intended  to  lead  him  • 
that  they  hinder  him  from  seeking  the  moral  freedom  which  is 
awaiting  him  if  he  will  receive  it. 

For  there  is  another  set  of  facts,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christendom  to  which,  also,  there  is  only  a  most  imper- 
fect parallel  in  the  ancient  world.  We  find  men  emerging  out 
of  darkness  into  a  marvellous  light,  coming  to  understand  what 
that  strife  in  themselves  meant,  and  how  and  why  they  had 
fallen  into  it,  coming  to  see  that  their  true  state  is  that  of  union 
with  One  higher  than  themselves,  their  king  and  their  Deliverer, 
in  whom  they  were  created,  apart  from  whom  they  cannot  sub- 
sist, in  trusting  whom  they  lose  that  feverish  self- consciousness 
which  has  been  their  death,  and  acquire  a  pure,  and  true,  and 
common  life. 

Now,  what  is  it  that  one  wants  to  make  these  two  sets  of 
facts,  which  comprise  so  much  of  what  is  most  dismal  and 
most  blessed  in  the  individual  and  in  the  social  experience  of 
eighteen  centuries,  intelligible  to  us  ?  Is  it  not  the  belief  that 
some  Person  has  been  leading  men,  in  spite  of  all  struggles 
and  reluctance  on  their  parts,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  escape 
from  the  reality  of  things,  in  spite  of  all  the  soothing  or  irrita- 
ting prescriptionsi  of  earthly  doctors,  to  a  knowledge  of  what 
they  are  according  to  that  separate,  unnatural,  immoral  condi- 
tion which  they  have  imagined  for  themselves,  and  of  what 
they  are  according  to  the  true  and  blessed  order  which  God 
has  established  for  them  ?     And  is  not  this  precisely  what  is 


278  STANDARD  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

expressed  in  the  words,  "  The  Comforter  shall  reprove"  (or 
convict)   "  the  world  of  sin,  because  they  believe  not  on  me?" 

Nothing  in  those  words,  determines  how  this  or  that  man 
shall  receive  the  influence  which  is  exerted  upon  him.  The 
"  world1''  is  said  to  be  the  subject  of  the  conviction  ;  the  whole 
of  Society  will  be  acted  upon  by  the  divine  Spirit.  And  yet 
it  is  not  to  the  outside  world  that  lie  will  speak.  A  convic- 
tion of  Sin  must  be  addressed  to  the  conscience,  the  inner 
man,  the  person  from  whom  thoughts,  words  and  acts  flow. 
There  will,  it  is  said,  be  this  silent  mysterious  operation.  It 
will  produce  results.  These  results  may  be  merely  fear,  cow- 
ardice, horror  of  God,  contrivances  to  escape  from  Him.  They 
may  be  trust  in  Him  as  a  Friend  and  Deliverer,  a  renunciation 
of  all  self-seeking  experiments,  rest  in  the  Son  of  Man.  They 
may  be  any  condition  of  feeling  between  these  two  extremes. 
On  this  subject  we  have  no  information  ;  we  require  none.  We 
want  to  know  who  is  speaking  to  us  ;  what  He  is  saying,  to 
what  issue  He  would  lead  us,  what  there  is  in  us  which  may 
!d  to  Him  or  resist  Him.  On  these  points  we  have  all  the 
light  we  require;  all  that  can  help  us  to  obedience  and  peace. 
If  we  wish  to  limit  the  movements  of  that  Spirit  which  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,  that  we  may  prove  ourselves  to  be  within  the 
circle  of  His  influence,  we  offer  a  sad  evidence  that  we  are 
resisting  Him. 

2.  If  the  conscience  of  sin  is  characteristic  of  the  new  world 
as  distinguished  from  the  old,  I  do  not  think  any  one  can  doubt 
that  there  has  been  also  a  higher  standard  of  Righteousness 
than  any  which  can  be  traced  in  the  best  men  and  the  best 
nations  that  classical  history  introduces  to  us.  I  make  this 
remark  with  a  full  recollection  of  the  apparent  objections  to  it 
which  I  noticed  before,  and  with  the  greatest  desire  to  admit 
their  reasonableness.  I  acknowledge  that  the  elevation  of  the 
Christian  standard  has  been  a  plea  for  treating  the  love  of  city 
and  country  which  the  Greek  and  Roman  heroes  exhibited  as 


PERVERSION  OF  IT.  279 

mundane  and  heathenish.  I  acknowledge  that  this  feeling  has 
prevailed  among  Protestants  as  well  as  Romanists,  and  that 
whenever  and  wherever  it  has  prevailed,  there  has  been  the 
best  excuse  for  exclaiming  against  the  popular  religious  doc- 
trines and  doctors  as  immoral  and  antisocial,  for  declaring  that 
the  patriotism  which  they  despised  was  better  and  truer  than 
anything  which  they  put  in  its  place.  I  admit,  as  I  did  in  my 
Essay  on  Regeneration,  that  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  maxims 
of  life  have  proved,  not  only  hostile  to  civil  life,  but  to  domestic; 
to  those  relations  upon  which  God,  in  the  Jewish  dispensation, 
put  such  high  honor,  which  He  takes  as  the  very  instruments 
of  revealing  himself,  which  St.  Paul  connects  with  the  life  and 
substance  of  the  Church.  And  this  being  the  case,  it  has  fol- 
lowed, of  course,  that  the  ideal  Righteousness  has  sunk  into  a 
meaner  and  more  degrading  form  of  Self-righteousness  than 
any  which  can  be  found  beyond  the  circle  of  Christendom. 
Nay,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  self-righteous  practices  which 
have  tormented  the  world  elsewhere  have  their  centre  and 
explanation  in  Christian  Society. 

Above  all,  the  fearful  contradictions  which  have  gathered 
about  the  idea  of  Sacrifice,  and  have  made  the  giving  up  of 
Self  the  plea  for  the  most  intense  calculating  Selfishness,  have 
received  their  fullest  illustration  from  the  acts  and  conceptions 
of  Christian  men.  Among  them,  too,  the  horrible  notion  of 
making  the  safety  of  the  soul  a  motive  for  violations  of  Truth, 
nay,  of  making  Truth  merely  a  means  to  safety,  has  led  to  such 
intricacies  of  deception  and  of  cruelty,  as  it  would  be  hard  to 
find  examples  of  in  the  countries  where  it  has  never  been  pro- 
claimed that  the  Lord  God  is  a  God  of  Truth  and  without 
iniquity,  one  who  hateth  robbery  for  burnt-offering. 

I  do  not  want  to  conceal  one  of  these  terrible  observations  ; 
we  have  need  to  meditate  them  more  and  more  deeply.  I  only 
want  you  to  dwell  as  earnestly,  on  another  class  of  observa- 
tions, which  appear  utterly  opposed  to  them,  and  yet  which 


280  UNIVERSALITY,  SELF-SACRIFICE,  TRUTH. 

cannot  be  separated  from  them.     That  wicked  contempt  for 
national  and  domestic  life  to  which  I  alluded,  is  connected  with 
such  an  idea  of  a  universal  fellowship,  of  a  union  with  men  as 
men,  of  duties  owing  to  all  men  everywhere,  with  such  evi- 
dences that  this  idea  is  not  a  barren  one,  not  a  mere  maxim  or 
theory,  but  a  mighty  operative  principle, — as  you  can  scarcely 
perceive  the  faintest  foreshadowing  of  among-  the  greatest  citi- 
zens of  the  old  republics.     That  grovelling  notion  of  men  prac- 
tising acts  of  devotion  that  they  may  avert  some  penalty  or 
buy  some  prize,  has  been  associated  with  such  a  resolute  cast- 
ing away  of  life,  reputation,  hope,  everything,  when  other  men 
were  to  be  blessed,   and  the  love  of  God  to  them  was  to  be 
declared, — with  such  an  overpowering  belief  in  a  charity  that 
is  mightier  than  Sin,  Death,  the  Devil,  which  can  penetrate  the 
being  of  man,  and  utterly  destroy  the  selfishness  there, — as  you 
can  only  hear  the  feeblest  prophecy  of  in  the  highest  raptures 
of  aneient  poets  and  philosophers ;  and  yet  the  realization  of 
it  has  been  among  peasants  and  feeble  women.     That  blasphe- 
mous notion  of  lying  for  God,  which  has  defiled  the  morality 
of  Romanists  and  Protestants,  has  been  accompanied  in  the 
minds  of  both,    with  a  persuasion  that  Truth  is  higher   than 
Heaven  and  deeper  than  Hell,  that  God  Himself  is  the  Truth  ; 
that  everything  is  to  be  parted  with  for  the  sake  of  that.     I 
do  not  say  that  the  best  men   in   the   old   world   had  not  a 
conviction  that  this  must  be  so,   or  that  we  do  not  owe  them 
gratitude  unspeakable,  for  having  testified  that  man's  busin 
in  life  is  to  seek  for  that  which  is,  to  believe  in  it  that  he  may 
find  it,  and  to  strip  himself  of  all  phantoms  and  shadows  which 
interfere  with  the  apprehension  of  it.     God   be   thanked   for 
having  raised  up  such  witnesses  to  Himself!     What  I  say  is, 
that  the  witness  has  been  found  to  be  real  and  substantial,  by 
tens  of  thousands  who  have  known  nothing  of  dialectics,  whoso 
only  training  has  been  that  of  poverty,  sickness,  the   prison, 
the  rack.      These  were  their  schoolmasters ;    by  these  they 


THE  CONVICTION  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  281 

were  lifted  up  to  feel  that  there  was  a  perfect  Righteousness, 
a  universal  self-sacrificing  Love,  an  Eternal  Truth,  of  which 
they  were  inheritors. 

And  here  is  the  solution  of  the  mystery.  "  When  He  com- 
eth  He  shall  convince  the  world  of  Righteousness,  because  I  go 
to  my  Father,  and  ye  see  me  no  more?"1  There  had  been  a 
standard  of  eternal  righteousness,  love,  self-sacrifice,  exhib- 
ited in  the  world,  exhibited  by  a  man  carrying  mortal 
flesh,  dying  a  death  which  we  die.  And  that  man  had 
gone  out  of  sight,  had  seemed  to  leave  no  traces  of  Him- 
self on  earth.  But  a  voice  was  ever  whispering  at  men's  hearts, 
"  He  is  ascended  on  high  to  His  Father  and  your  Father. 
That  righteousness  which  was  seen  here,  is  now  }7ours ;  it  is 
for  one  and  all  of  you.  You  are  participators  in  that  sacrifice 
which  he  has  offered  for  all,  and  which  He  is  presenting  as 
your  Intercessor  to  His  Father.  You  may  know  that  Truth, 
and  that  Truth  may  make  you  free,  of  which  He  came  into  the 
world,  and  died,  and  has  ascended,  to  testify." 

How  otherwise  we  could  bring  these  different  warring 
experiences  into  harmony,  I  cannot  conceive.  The  wisdom  of 
Church  teachers  will  not  explain  them  ;  they  have  been  often 
the  great  agents  in  corruption,  and  when  they  have  been 
otherwise  the  secret  must  be  accounted  for.  The  innate  noble- 
ness of  man  will  not  explain  them,  for  we  have  to  interpret 
proofs  of  his  debasement.  His  innate  evil  will  not  explain 
them,  for  we  have  to  interpret  high  thoughts  and  glorious 
deeds.  If  we  believed  that  there  had  been  a  Spirit  of  Truth, 
not  acting  upon  the  surface  of  men's  minds,  but  carrying  on  a 
controversy  with  them  in  their  inmost  being,  encountering  all 
the  rebellions  of  the  cowardly,  reluctant  Will,  all  its  desires  to 
become  a  mere  Self-will,  bringing  out  its  darkness,  as  light 
always  must,  into  fuller  and  stronger  relief,  making  the  devilish 
apparent  because  it  was  confronted  with  the  divine ;  if  wo 


282  SENSE  OF  JUDGMENT. 

could  believe  that  this  was  a  Comforter,  a  divine  Person, 
stronger  than  His  enemies,  able  to  strengthen  man  to  all  fixed 
resolutions  and  noble  purposes, — to  bring  the  objects  which  lie 
perceives  dimly  and  at  a  distance,  within  the  sphere  of  his 
vision  ;  able  to  inspire  longings  and  hopes  when  the  spirit  of 
man  is  most  bent  and  cowed ;  able  to  point  him  upwards  to  a 
Father  in  Heaven  when  he  is  most  ready  to  call  himself  merely 
a  son  of  earth ;  able  at  the  same  time  to  make  him  understand 
his  work  on  earth,  and  to  endcnv  him  with  powers  for  perform- 
ing it ;  able  to  support  him  in  suffering,  to  give  him  glimpses 
of  the  substantial  glory  into  which  Christ  has  entered  through 
suffering;  able  to  make  him  perceive  that  everything  which  is 
merely  his  own  is  perishable,  that  what  is  most  divine  is  com- 
mon to  him  with  his  fellows  ; — then  I  think  we  need  not  cho< 
the  bright  spots  of  modern  history  and  eonceal  its  horrors ; 
the  more  courageously  we  face  the  one,  the  more  hope  will 
come  to  us  from  the  contemplation  of  the  other. 

3.  For  assuredly  there  has  been,  and  is,  a  conviction  work- 
ing in  the  minds  of  men,  the  most  various  and  unlike  each 
other,  that  this  kind  of  conflict  is  not  to  go  on  for  ever.  There 
is  a  sense  of  Judgment,  of  some  great  decision,  that  is  to  set- 
tle for  ever  wThich  of  these  is  the  stronger,  the  Evil,  or  the 
Good  with  which  the  Evil  has  been  so  intricately  combined. 
This  thought  of  Judgment  has  been  itself  as  perplexed  as 
either  of  the  others.  Men  have  fancied  they  wrere  to  prepare 
for  judgment  by  eschewing  their  common  duties, — by  devoting 
themselves  to  the  work  of  saving  their  own  souls.  They  have 
fancied  that  if,  by  any  means,  they  could  escape  from  judg- 
ment, it  would  be  an  unspeakable  blessing.  They  have  fan- 
cied that  Christ  came,  not  as  He  said,  to  save  the  ivorld,  but 
to  save  tlicm,  that  they  might  not  be  judged  like  their  fellows. 
The  strangest  results,  doctrinal  and  practical,  have  followed 
from  these  habits  of  mind,  and  from  the  encouragement  which 


HOW  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  283 

Christian  teachers  have  given  to  them  ;  some  of  them  I  pointed 
out  in  my  twelfth  Essay.  But  in  the  midst  of  these  we  per- 
ceive a  deep  and  settled  desire  for  judgment,  a  longing  that 
there  should  not  be  a  perpetual  confusion  of  Sin  and  Right- 
eousness,  of  Truth  and  Falsehood, — a  certainty  that  if  Christ  is 
King,  there  cannot  be.  While  there  has  been,  and  is,  such  a 
dread  of  judgment  as  there  never  was  in  the  old  world,  there 
has  been,  and  is,  such  a  passionate  craving  for  judgment  as 
the  heroes  of  it  may  have  now  and  then  felt  in  hopeful  mo- 
ments when  the  contradictions  of  the  world  became  very 
oppressive  ;  but  such  as  certainly  never  became  a  part  of  their 
abiding  convictions.  For  it  is  evident  that  the  feelings  respect- 
ing Judgment  must  correspond  to  those  respecting  Sin  and 
Righteousness.  If  our  thoughts  of  these  are  superficial,  our 
thoughts  of  that  will  be ;  if  we  connect  them  with  the  very  sub- 
stance of  our  being,  the  judgment  will  bear  reference  to  that. 
The  awfulness  of  the  thoughts  of  Judgment  which  we  in 
Christendom  have  entertained  has  been  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  Sin  coming  out  of  such  close  tremendous  connexion 
with  our  own  selves,  of  the  Righteousness  which  opposes  it 
being  brought  so  close  to  us.  The  hopefulness  of  our  thoughts 
respecting  Judgment  has  arisen  in  like  manner  from  the  sense 
of  a  mighty  struggle  in  the  inmost  region  of  our  thoughts  and 
consciences  between  the  powers  of  good  and  evil,  from  the 
certainty  that  the  good  is  mightier  even  there,  and  that  God, 
being  absolutely  righteous,  is  on  the  side  of  the  good  against 
the  evil.  But  what  external  doctrine  about  the  righteousness 
of  God  could  have  kept  this  faith  alive  in  any  single  heart,  far 
more  in  the  heart  of  Christendom,  for  eighteen  centuries  ? 
What  confidence  that  Christ  had  come  and  preached  of  good 
being  mightier  than  ill,  nay,  had  shewn  it  in  His  own  person 
to  be  mightier,  could  have  kept  it  alive ;  or  how  could  that 
confidence  have  been  itself  preserved  ?     "  When  He  cometh 


284  THE  PRINCE  OF  THE  WORLD  JUDGED- 

He  shall  convince  the  world  of  judgment,  because  the  Prince 
of  this  world  is  judged."     Yes!     The  Spirit  has  been  saying 
to  every  generation,  He  is  saying  very  emphatically  to  ours, 
— "  It  is  not  uncertain  what  the  issue  of  the  battle  between 
right  and  wrong,  truth  and  lies,  will  be.     It  is  known  ;  you 
may  know  it.     The  evil  power  seems  to  have  a  mighty  ascend- 
ency.    If  you  look  at  the  outside  of  history,  if  you  merely 
dwell  upon  statistics,  you  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
good  is  very  weak  indeed.      But  examine  the  inner  life  of  the 
world,  search  into  the  principles  and  causes  of  its  peace  and 
order,  of  its  misery  and  confusion ;  above  all,  look  into  the 
principles  and  causes  of  the  right  and  truth  you  have  sought 
and   done,   of  the   wrong  and   falsehood  to  which  you  have 
yielded,  and  you  will  find  in  the  one  the  pledges  of  endurance 
and  eternity,  in  the  other  of  swift  and  sudden  destruction.     It 
is  true  for  you ;  it  is  true  for  mankind  ;  Christ  has  proved  it ; 
and  though  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  His  words,  His  acts, 
His  triumphs,  do  not  pass  away.     He  will  bring  forth  right- 
eousness to  judgment." 

To  speak  of  this  conviction  merely  as  some  gracious  influ- 
ence which  steals  into  certain  gentle,  prepared,  believing  hearts, 
is  altogether  to  misinterpret  its  nature,  and  to  make  such  influ- 
ences unintelligible  to  the  persons  who  receive  them.  They 
are  worth  nothing  to  any  one  who  calls  them  his  own.  They 
soon  become  occasions  of  pride  and  self-glorification,  or  else  of 
despondency,  because  the  feelings  which  were  so  serene  and 
pleasant  yesterday  are  turbulent  and  gloomy  to-day ;  unless 
they  are  traced  to  One  whose  presence  does  not  depend  upon 
any  of  our  changeable  moods.  No  doubt  it  is  a  paradox  that 
we  have  the  Comforter,  and  ask  for  the  Comforter;  that  we 
pray  for  Him,  and  could  not  pray  without  Him.  No  doubt  it  is 
a  paradox  that  He  is  with  those  who  feel  His  presence  least ; 
that  when  we  seem  for  a  moment  to  feel  He  is  ours,  He  is 


THE  COMFORTER  IN  THE  BOOK.  285 

gone.  These  are  paradoxes ;  for  everything  which  has  relation 
to  our  internal  being,  puts  on  a  strange  shape  when  it  takes 
the  form  of  a  proposition.  Every  man  finds  this  out  for  him- 
self, when  he  begins  to  think  and  suffer.  The  difficulty  is  not 
increased  by  referring  our  thoughts  and  feelings  to  One  who 
overlooks  them,  and  knows  them,  and  sympathises  with  them. 
It  is  saved  from  being  intolerable.  If  we  were  forced  to  think 
that  all  which  Scripture  tells  us  of  One  who  grieves  .with  us, 
and  for  us,  and  whom  we  may  grieve,  is  mere  fiction,  the  bur- 
den of  existence  would  have  nothing  to  lighten  it.  Few  as 
there  may  be  who  attach  a  distinct  meaning  to  those  words  * 
all  would  find  an  infinite  loss  if  they  were  taken  away.  For 
they  belong  to  all,  and  wre  cheat  ourselves  of  the  blessing  they 
might  afford  us,  and  the  light  they  ihrow  upon  God's  ways, 
by  denying  them  to  any. 

Again,  it  cannot  be  that  this  Teacher  is  merely  speaking  to 
us  out  of  the  Bible.  To  have  Him  speaking  there  in  broad 
common  words ;  to  have  Him  setting  before  us  thoughts  that 
were  thought,  and  feelings  that  were  felt,  ages  ago,  and  which 
we  may,  nevertheless,  assert  as  ours  to  have  Him  there,  unfold- 
*  ing  the  steps  of  a  world-drama  which  has  reached  a  divine  cat- 
astrophe, and  yet  which  is  moving  on  to  another  catastrophe, 
— we  being  persons  in  it  now,  and  able  to  understand  the  pas- 
sing scenes  of  it  by  those  which  are  presented  to  us  in  the  book, 
— and  to  be  sure  that  the  same  Divine  Person  who  appeared 
at  the  opening  of  it,  has  been  present  throughout,  and  will  ga- 
ther all  round  Himself,  at  the  end ;  this  is  wonderful :  this  is  a 
sign  to  us  that  we  are  not  to  control  the  Spirit,  or  make  Him 
the  mere  minister  of  our  experiences.  But  the  Comforter  is 
not  in  the  book  if  He  is  not  convincing  the  world. 

And  therefore  it  cannot  be  that  He  descends  now  and  then, 
at  distant  intervals,  in  uncertain  lapses,  like  the  Angel  into  the 
pool  of  Bethesda.    There  maybe  great  crises  in  the  education 


286  EFFECT  OF  GLORIFYING  FACULTIES. 

of  the  world,  times  when  it  starts  up  after  years  or  centuries 
of  paralysis,  into  a  more  vigorous  and  healthy  life;  when 
buried  truths  come  forth  out  of  their  caves,  and  cast  away 
their  grave  clothes ;  when  there  seems  to  be  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth,  because  the  clouds  which  hid  the  face  of  one,  and 
hindered  the  quickening  processes  of  the  other  have  passed 
away.  But  such  moments,  however  surprising  they  may  seem 
to  us,  obey  some  fixed  law,  and  are  connected  by  close,  how- 
ever invisible,  links,  and  denote  the  action  and  inspiration  of 
One  who  is  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  us. 

1  -But  oh,  how  melancholy  if  we  must  resolve  this  Spirit  into 
the  spiritual  movements,  affections,  powers  of  the  creatures 
whom  He  came  to  guide  and  animate  !  Thanks  be  to  God  for 
the  witness  which  is  borne  in  our  day  for  the  spirituality,  not  of 
a  few  men,  but  of  man  as  man.  It  is  His  teaching,  J I  is  way 
of  declaring  II  is  Son  to  us,  the  battle  of  His  Spirit  with  our 
pettishness  and  vanity.  But  If  we  substitute  the  lesson  for  the 
Teacher,  if  man  falls  down  and  worships  his  own  faculties  of 
worship,  if  he  determines  to  be  a  God  because  he  has 
the  capacity  of  knowing  God,  what  a  tyranny  of  particular 
spiritual  men  is  he  preparing  for  himself,  what  a  slavery 
to  mere  gifts,  what  a  rivalry  of  impostors,  each  pretending  to 
be  the  spiritual  and  divine  man  who  can  guide  the  rest ;  ulti- 
mately what  an  abyss  of  materialism  !  We  shall  not  have 
one  Montanus  claiming  to  be  the  Comforter,  but  each 
little  neighborhood  and  sect  will  have  its  own  Montanus,  its 
petty  prophet,  to  take  the  place  of  the  Spirit  ivho  guidetk  into 
all  truth. 

"  After  all,  how  easy  it  has  been  for  the  Unitarian  to  deny  the 
1  Vrsonality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  even  to  find  Spiritual 
excuses  for  his  denial  !"  It  is  most  easy  for  him,  and  for  all 
of  us.  I  could  find  a  thousand  excuses  if  I  wanted  them ;  I 
should  not  despair  of  bringing  any  texts  by  skilful  proces 


DENIAL  OF  THE  COMFORTER.  287 

to  vote  on  my  side ;  after  a  time  I  might  convince  myself  that 
that  was  their  most  natural  meaning.  But  I  cannot  find  that 
it  is  an  object  for  which  I  ought  to  spend  this  labor.  I  cannot 
find  that  I  should  be  much  the  gainer  if  I  persuaded  myself  that 
I  had  not  this  Friend,  and  Teacher,  and  Comforter  with  me. 
I  do  not  mean  in  ease,  or  satisfaction,  or  peace  of  mind.  These, 
one  is  never  to  keep  at  the  expense  of  truth.  In  fact,  I  have 
never  discovered  how  one  can  keep  them,  if  one  prefers  them 
to  truth.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  I  shall  not  love  the  truth 
better,  if  I  feel  I  have  not  a  Spirit  of  Truth  guiding  me  towards 
it.  I  think  I  should  give  up  the  pursuit  altogether,  I  should 
take  up  with  any  appearances  or  falsehoods  that  looked 
plausible.  ■  x 

"  It  is  not,  however,"  some  Unitarian  will  say,  "  a  proof  of 
our  having  a  gift,  that  we  have  a  need  of  it.  Locke's  argument 
against  the  Papists  has  always  passed  muster  with  us.  You 
say  there  is  an  infallible  authority,  because  we  should  be  the 
better  for  having  one ;  how  much  better  we  should  be  off  if 
we  wera  all  infallible,  and  yet  we  are  not."  I  am  bold  enough 
to  differ  both  with  Locke  and  the  Papists.  I  do  not  think  we 
should  be  better  for  having  an  infallible  mortal  guide,  or  for 
being  infallible  ourselves.  If  either  state  were  good  for  us,  I 
believe  it  would  have  been  appointed  for  us.  I  think  we  have 
an  infallible,  immortal  Guide,  and  that  this  is  what  we  need. 
But  do  not  accept  the  evidence  of  your  wishes  or  necessities, 
if  you  think  that  unsatisfactory.  Try  whether  you  can  solve 
the  problems  of  the  world  without  the  belief  in  this  personal 
Teacher.  Or  if  you  do  not  care  for  the  problems  of  the  world, 
try  whether  you  can  solve  the  problems  of  your  own  heart.  I 
speak  boldly  to  you  on  this  point,  for  I  am  satisfied  that  you 
have  this  Comforter  with  you  as  I  have ;  that  He  is  convincing 
you  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment,  as  well  as  me. 
I  am  sure  there  is  a  Spirit  of  lies  who  is  always  striving  to  lead 


288  REASONS  FOR  TRUSTING  HIM. 

me  into  all  falsehood,  and  to  separate  me  from  you  and  from 
all  men.  I  believe  we  shall  understand  one  another  when  we 
know  that  his  adversary  is  with  us,  to  make  us  true  and  to 
make  us  one.  The  unity  of  the  Spirit,  however,  and  what  is 
involved  in  it,  I  reserve  for  my  next  subject. 


ESSAY    XV. 


ON  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


"  Supposing  those  facts  which  you  dwelt  upon  in  your  iast 
Essay  do  imply  the  presence  of  Him  whom  our  Lord  calls  the 
Comforter,  the  great  difficulty  for  those  who  compare  the 
promises  of  the  New  Testament  with  the  History  of  Christen- 
dom still  remains.  The  Apostles  speak,  or  have  always  been 
supposed  to  speak,  of  a  Church,  a  one  Catholic  Church,  as 
established,  or  about  to  be  established,  on  this  earth.  They 
connect  that  Church  with  the  gift  of  a  spirit,  who  is  called  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who,  it  was  said,  should  dwell  in  the  Church  as 
He  did  not  in  the  world, — who  was  to  purify  the  hearts  of  its 
members.  "Where  is  this  Church  ?  What  does  History  say. 
of  it  ?  What  do  our  eyes  tell  us  about  it  ?  Answer  these 
questions,  or  the  deepest  anxieties  of  our  age  are  still  unsat- 
isfied." 

I  feel  the  truth  of  these  remarks.     The  subject  which  I  dis- 
cussed in  the  last  Essay  approaches  so  closely  to  this,  that  I 
could  not  always  avoid  allusions  to  it.     But  I  passed  it  by  as 
much  as  I  could  ;  the  words  of  our  Lord  on  which  I  commented 
13  (289) 


290  THE  BIBLE,  SOCIAL. 

enabled  me  to  do  so.  They  speak  of  a  World ,  not  of  a  Church. 
They  speak  of  the  Comforter  as  convicting  the  world  of  Sin, 
of  Righteousness,  of  Judgment, — not  of  Him  as  a  Sanetifier, 
or  Reconciler.  I  desired  to  follow  His  guidance  :  but  I  did 
not  wish  to  shrink  from  the  other  examination,  however  appall- 
ing it  may  seem.  I  allow  that  there  is  a  very  distinct  obliga- 
tion laid  upon  us  all  to  explain  what  we  understand  by  the 
language  of  Scripture  respecting  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  and  the 
foundation  of  the  Church,  and  how  we  suppose  the  records 
the  world,  and  the  world  which  we.  see,  can  be  explained  in 
accordance  with  it. 

I  cannot  make  this  task  easier  to  myself  by  maintaining  that 
the  New  Testament  promises  certain  spiritual  blessings  to  indi- 
viduals, but  that  it  does  not  connect  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  with 
a  Society.       Kvery  ]  je  in  the  Bible — the  construction  of 

the  Bible — refutes  that  supposition.  The  earlier  records  speak 
of  a  nation  called  out  by  God  to  be  the  witness  of  His  pr 
enee  and  government  ;  the  later  records  have  no  connexion 
with  these, — have  no  distinct  meaning  of  their  own, — if  they 
do  not  describe  the  expansion  of  a  national  Society  into  a 
human  and  universal  Society.  The  expectations  of  the  Apos- 
tles, awakened  and  sustained  by  their  Lord's  teachings,  pointed 
to  this  issue: — they  were  to  be  the  ministers  of  a  kingdom  \ 
they  were  to  preach  of  a  kingdom  to  Israelites  ;  finally,  they 
were  to  baptize  all  nations.  They  were  told  they  had  not  yet 
power  to  fulfil  that  work.  They  knewT  that  they  had  not. 
They  had  a  mysterious  assurance  that  they  were  united  still 
to  the  Lord  who  had  been  with  them  on  earth  ;  they  felt  they 
might  call  upon  His  Father  as  their  Father.  But  they  could 
not  realize  their  relation  to  that  invisible  world  into  which  their 
Master  had  entered — entered,  He  said,  for  them.  He  had 
chosen  them  as  a  body  to  work  under  Him.  He  had  told  them 
that  they  were  to  work  together  after  He  had  gone  away. 
He  had  said  that  all  men  would  know  they  were  His  disciples 


THE  APOSTLES.  29  J 

by  the  love  they  had  to  each  other.  But  they  were  conscious 
of  jealousies  and  rivalries ;  each  might  soon  again  be  trying  to 
live  and  act  for  himself.  Unless  their  Lord  could  bind  them 
together  by  that  power  which  bound  Him  to  them,  fellowship 
among  such  naturally  unsociable  elements  was  impossible. 
And  surely  such  a  power  was  needed  if  they  were  ever  to 
break  through  the  fetters  of  their  Jewish  exclusiveness ;  to 
have  any  communion  with  men  of  other  kindreds  and  tongues. 
The  events  said  to  have  occurred  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
exactly  corresponded  to  these  anticipations.  A  powTer  is  said 
to  have  taken  possession  of  them, — a  power  which  governed 
their  thought  and  speech.  But  it  was  the  power  of  a  Spirit 
who  made  them  feel  they  were  one,  and  proclaim  their  oneness 
with  the.crowd  which  was  assembled  at  that  feast,  because  He 
who  established  it,  and  whose  mighty  works  were  commem- 
orated in  it,  was  declaring  them  to  be  one  with  Him.  The 
story  follows  of  the  baptism  of  the  three  thousand,  who  were 
to  receive  the  same  gift  as  the  Apostles  had  received,  and  of 
the  new  Society  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  not  noted  for  the  exer- 
cise of  the  gift  of  tongues,  but  for  the  continuance  of  its  mem- 
bers in  the  Apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowship,  for  the  joy  and 
singleness  of  heart  with  which  they  ate  their  bread,  for  their  not 
counting  the  things  they  had  as  their  own,  for  the  distribution 
which  they  made  to  those  who  had  need,  for  their  courage 
before  the  Sanhedrim,  for  the  confidence  with  which  they 
prayed  that  they  might  speak  with  all  boldness  of  the  King 
against  whom  Jews  and  Gentiles  had  gathered  together. 

The  Apostles  do  indeed  exercise  powers  of  healing,  and  they 
are  especially  careful  to  assert  that  no  cure  was  wrought  in 
their  own  name,  but  in  the  name  of  the  ascended  Son  of  God. 
But  what  the  historian  chiefly  dwells  on,  is  the  order  of  the 
Society  which  was  established  in  that  Name,  its  unity  and  holi- 
ness while  it  confessed  the  Spirit  to  be  with  it, — the  punish- 
ment of  those  (for  there  were  such  in  that  infant  community) 


292         THE  PHENOMENA  OF  THE  WORLD. 

who  lied  against  the  Holy  Ghost, — the  new  organization  which 
was  bu  :ed  by  the  quarrels  (for  there  were  those  in  that 
infant  community)  between  Hebrews  and  Hellenists. 

When  St.  Paul  goes  with  his  Gospel  into  the  cities  of  A 
Minor,  of  Macedonia,  of  Greece  Proper,  it  is  still  to  form 
Societies.  Each  of  these  is  named  an  Ecclesia  ;  the  members 
of  it  arc  said  to  be  called  or  chosen,  or  to  be  in  God  the  Father 
and  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  They  are  said  to  be  baptized  by 
one  Spirit  into  one  body.  These  distinct  bodies  are  portions 
of  a  universal  body. 

Everything,  then,  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  speaks  of 
fellowship  and  organization.  And  to  suppose  that  the  lat 
birth  in  the  universe  so  solemnly  announced,  so  long  waited 
for,  was  an  abortion,  or  that  the  child  was  not  to  come  to  the 
use  of  its  limbs  and  vital  energies  for  centuries,  is  to  suppose 
the  Apostles  at  once  deceived  and  deceivers.  They  told  their 
their  Lord  had  told  them,  that  a  crisis  to  be  wit- 
i  by  BOme  of  them,  would  show  that  a  kingdom  had 
come  forth,  which,  however  apparently  insignificant,  was  instinct 
with  a  Spirit  that  would  enable  it  to  rule  the  nations. 

Admitting  this,  how  can  I  dare  to  face  the  problems  which 
the  world,  as  wc  sec  it,  presents  to  us  ?  ]\Iust  I  not  save  the 
credit  of  Inspiration  by  resorting  to  fictions  which  had  not 
done  men  much  good  hitherto,  and  which  will  certainly  not 
save  them  now?  By  assuming,  for  instance,  that  forms  and 
professions  constitute  a  Church, — that  external  badges  mean 
the  same  thing  as  an  indwelling  Spirit?  I  hope  I  shall  be 
preserved  from  any  such  wicked  trifling  ;  if  I  fall  into  it,  the 
falsehood  will  soon  make  itself  evident. 

I.  First,  then,  we  find  a  body  which  affirms  itself  to  be  the 
one  Holy  Catholic  Church  of  the  world.  Its  members  form  the 
bulk  of  the  population  of  Western  Europe  :  its  claims  to  be 
what  it  represents  itself  to  be,  are  publicly  recognised  by  many 
of  the  most  conspicuous  and  civilized  states.    This  body  boasts 


CLAIMS  OF    THE  LATIN  CBUKCH.  293 

(hat  it  is  the  heir  of  that  which  was  established  in  Jerusalem 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost :  whatever  rights  and  powers  resided 
in  that  Church,  it  says,  have  descended  upon  it.  If  that  Church 
was  able  to  do  wonderful  works,  this  Church  declares  that  it 
can  do  the  same;  the  gift,  it  says,  has  never  been  withdrawn, 
has  been  exercised  at  intervals  in  all  generations,  makes  itself 
manifest  now.  This  sign  of  continuance  and  identity  it  is 
inclined  to  dwell  upon  most;  still  others  are  not  wanting. 
"  There  has  been  no  break,"  it  declares,  "  in  the  line  of  Church 
ministers,  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  downwards.  The 
character  of  the  organization  is  the  same.  The  Apostles  w7ere 
regarded  as  the  fathers  of  a  family ;  the  idea  of  paternity  has 
been  strictly  preserved ;  it  has  even  unfolded  itself;  it  is  more 
completely  realized  now  than  it  was  at  first.  The  capital  of 
the  Church,"  it  is  admitted,  "  has  been  changed ;  but  that 
change  came  to  pass,  first,  by  a  divine  ordinance  expressly 
depriving  Jerusalem  of  its  honor;  secondly,  by  a  series  of 
events, — equally  attesting  the  divine  purpose, — which  have 
deposed  the  old  Caesars  from  their  seat,  and  have  established 
the  successors  of  St.  Peter  upon  it.  And  this  circumstance 
has,  it  is  said,  produced  an  unity  which  would  otherwise  have 
been  wanting  to  Christendom.  The  wild  Gothic  tribes,  full  of 
their  separate  strifes,  impatient  of  fellowship,  have  been  brought 
to  confess  a  general  spiritual  head,  and  a  community  of  faith 
higher  than  any  differences  of  race  or  any  national  disagree- 
ments. In  defiance  of  the  tendencies  of  each  nation  to  find  a 
separate  language  for  itself,  a  common  language  has  established 
itself  as  an  organ  of  devotion.  In  defiance,  again,  of  the  ten- 
dency of  each  nation  to  set  up  for  itself  a  separate  worship — a 
tendency  equally  evident  in  the  Old  world  and  the  New, — a 
common  creed  and  a  common  worship  have  succeeded  in  keep- 
ing their  ground  for  many  centuries,  the  head  of  the  Society 
being  always  able  to  interpret  what  has  been  misunderstood, 
to  put  down  the  inventors  of  new  opinions,  to  provide  for  fresh 


294  ITS    HOLINESS. 

emergencies.  For,  there  being  such  a  person,  whose  authority 
all  the  different  members  of  this  Society  acknowledge  as  infal- 
lible and  past  appeal,  the  Church,"  it  is  said,  "  can  combine  the 
greatest  fixedness  with  the  greatest  elasticity.  It  has  main- 
tained the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints  without  wavering ; 
it  has  ever  been  giving  birth  to  new  opinions  and  practices, 
where  they  were  needful  to  develop  and  complete  the  old, — to 
new  orders  of  men  when  it  was  requisite  to  encounter  diseases 
or  necessities  in  the  body  politic,  that  had  previously  not  existed 
or  not  been  observed. 

"  This  Church,"  it  is  further  declared,  "  is  not  only  spread 
over  the  whole  surface  of  modern  European  society;  not  only 
are  its  priests  to  be  seen  at  the  corners  of  every  street ;  not 
only  are  they  performing  services  continually  in  every  Church, 
which  establish  a  communion  between  angels  and  men,  the 
living  and  the  departed;  not  only  is  the  Sacrifice  continually 
offered  up  which  reconciles  the  offending  creatures  to  their 
Creator,  and  brings  down  blessings  on  the  earth  ;  not  only  is 
that  Sacrifice  lifted  before  the  eyes  of  men,  that  they  may 
believe  and  adore, — but  the  influence  of  the  Church  affects  the 
politics  of  all   kingdoms,  penetrates  into  the  rec  of  all 

families.  Every  individual  is  within  the  reach  of  its  guidai 
and  blessing.  Every  burdened  conscience  knows  where  it  may 
go  that  it  may  lay  down  its  burden, — who  can  set  it  free. 
Nothing  in  the  arrangements  of  this  Society,"  it  is  said,  "  is 
merely  distant  and  abstract ;  it  meets  its  peculiar  case,  pro- 
vides a  remedy  for  every  ailment,  a  satisfaction  for  every  crav- 
ing. And  it  proves," — so  its  champions  triumphantly  continue, 
— "  its  title  to  be  the  one  Catholic  Church,  since  all  who  rebel 
against  it  or  separate  from  it  necessarily  become  divided,  since 
no  body  besides  it  can  put  forth  the  least  pretension  to  univer- 
sale v.  And  it  proves  itself  to  be  holy,  because  no  other  can 
show  such  an  array  of  devoted,  self-sacrificing  saints." 

It  is  at  this  point,  I  suspect,  that  the  ordinary  observer,  the 


OBJECTIONS.         ,  295 

simple  layman,  the  European  traveller, — for  it  is  to  such  a  man, 
and  not  to  some  adverse  divine,  that  these  statements  are  likely 
to  be  addressed, — will  step  in  with  an  objection.     "  All  your 
arguments,"  he  will  answer,  "  may  be  true  enough ;    at  all 
events,  I  cannot  refute  them.     You  may  have  the  miraculous 
powers  you  speak  of,  the  uninterrupted  descent,  the  infallible 
authority,  the  fixed  dogmas,  the  adaptation  to  circumstances, 
the  band  of  saints.     But  when  you  talk  of  a  holy  society,  do 
tell  me  what  your  words  mean,  for  they  utterly  bewilder  me. 
Do  you  call  this  society,  in  which  I  am  dwelling,  a  holy  society  ? 
Do  you  call  this  country,  for  instance,  which  is  nearest  the 
centre  of  holiness,  a  holy  country?     I  will  not  press  you  too 
much.    I  will  suppose  that  though  you  have  miraculous  powers, 
the  power  does  not  always  exert  itself  in  this  way.     That  it 
can  make  statues  wink  more  easily  than  it  can  make  human 
beings  abandon  their  habits  of  revenge  or  lying, — I  can  under- 
stand.    But  when  the  power  is  exerted,  when  you  are  doing 
a  work  for  men,  I  want  to  know  whether  that  is  for  good  or 
for  ill  ?     I  cannot  make  up  my  mind  that  it  is  for  good.     I  can- 
not help  perceiving,  not  that  you  cfo  not  reclaim  men  from  being 
false,  but  that  you  continually  make  them  false ;   not  that  you 
sometimes  fail  in  preventing  moral  corruption,  but  that  you  are 
working  very  hard,  by  some  of  your  most  potent  and  most 
vaunted  agencies,  to  inornate  it ;    not  that  evil  and  debasing 
habits  have  defied  all  the  energies  of  preachers,  confessors,  and 
absolvers;    but  that  preachers,  confessors,  and  absolvers,  are 
very  often  helping  more  to  strengthen  these  habits,  and  make 
them  invincible,  than  all  other  men  together." 

This  kind  of  conviction, — Romanists  should  understand  it, 
and  we  for  our  humiliation  should  understand  it  too, — is  doing 
immeasurably  more  to  make  their  arguments  fall  lifeless  upon 
practical  men,  wThose  minds  are  not  blinded  to  the  distinction 
of  right  and  wrong,  than  all  our  elaborate  reasonings.  And 
when  a  man  has  gone  so  far  in  his  examination  of  the  phrase, 


296  IS  THE  UNITY  REAL  ? 

"  One  Holy  Catholic  Church,"  his  observation,  without  any 
help  from  divinity,  or  much  from  ecclesiastical  history,  may 
carry  him  a  little  further.  He  may  demur  to  a  unity  which  is 
compatible  with  the  infinite  'contrarieties }  not  diversities,  of 
belief,  which  he  will  himself  have  met  with  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries;  with  the  wild  immoral  heathenish  superstitions, 
which  an  intelligent  priest  will  at  once  disclaim,  yet  which  exist 
m  the  very  classes  that  most  acknowledge  the  influence  of 
priests ;  with  the  contemptuous  infidelity  which  they  themselves 
impute  to  the  classes  that  are  out  of  their  reach  ;  with  the  dis- 
content that  is  muttered  by  better  men.  All  this, — with  the 
modifications  of  faith  which  exist  in  the  sacerdotal  order  itself, 
touching  all  points  from  the  most  unquestioning  orthodoxy  to 
absolute  atheism, — may  co-exist,  no  doubt, with  something  that 
is  called  unity  ;  nay,  these  differences  may  be  alleged  as  proofs 
how  vigorous  the  m  must  be  which  can  enforce  a  unifor- 

mity in  spite  of  them.  But  they  may  somewhat  puzzle  a  person 
who  is  inquiring  whether  this  is  that  Church  which  began  when 
a  Spirit  of  unity  took  possession  of  a  body  of  men,  allowing 
them  to  retain  their  ex?  dini-rences,  because  they  had  that 

ici/Jtia  which  made  them  one.  And  a  similar  difficulty  will 
beset  him  when  he  considers  that  the  symbol  of  the  descent  of 
that  Spirit  was,  that  men  could  hear,  in  their  different  tongues, 
the  wonderful  works  of  God,  and  when  he  observes  that  the 
one  tongue  which  is  the  symbol  of  modern  Catholicism  is  a 
sentence  of  exclusion  to  the  whole  body  of(i  reeks,  seeing  that 
they  boast  of  a  somewhat  older  and  more  sacred  dialect.  And 
generally  it  will  strike  him,  I  fancy,  that  the  boasts  of  Roman- 
ists  themselves  establish  the  inference  which  he  would  have 
deduced  from  his  own  experience,  that  the  preservation  of  a 

st  machinery,  of  a  surface  uniformity,  of  an  artificial  holiness, 
is  what  they  understand  by  the  preservation  of  a  Church  in 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  of  Unity  has  made  His  habitation. 

II.  An  impartial  observer  who  has  arrived  at  this  mournful 


PROTESTANT    NATIONS.  297 

conclusion  may  turn,  with  some  pleasure,  to  another  class  of 
facts  which  the  modern  European  world  offers  to  him.  He 
may  hear  with  satisfaction  that  several  nations  have  raised  their 
protest  against  the  attempt  to  crush  all  distinct  thoughts  and 
languages,  under  one  general  name.  He  will  rejoice  to  find 
that  their  rulers  are  considered  responsible  to  God,  for  their 
conduct  to  their  subjects  and  to  other  lands ;  and  to  no  earthly 
superior,  whatever  claims  of  infallibility  or  divinity  he  may 
allege.  He  may  find  that  in  such  countries  there  is  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  dignity  of  civil  life,  of  the  duty  of  nations  to  main- 
tain their  independence,  of  the  inviolability  of  the  domestic 
hearth,  of  the  worth  which  belongs  to  the  ordinary  virtues  of 
plain  dealing  and  truth-speaking,  which  he  has  sought  for  in 
vain  among  those  who  only  breathe  a  sacerdotal  atmosphere. 
He  may  be  pleased  to  observe  that  nevertheless  in  these  coun- 
tries there  is  an  acknowledgment  of  the  importance  "and  neces- 
sity of  a  spiritual  influence ;  that  the  priest,  though  he  cannot 
claim  to  be  a  king,  has  his  own  recognised  and  lawful  position. 
At  first  such  discoveries  may  be  very  cheering ;  possibly 
they  will  not  cease  to  be  so.  But  he  will  soon  hear,  not  only 
from  Romanists,  not  only  from  those  who  suppose  that  the 
Romanist  is  somewhere  near  the  truth  in  his  conception  of  the 
Church,  but  also  from  those  who  regard  him  as  hopelessly  and 
fatally  astray,  that  these  protesting  nations  are  altogether 
unspiritual  and  secular.  These  hard  names  will  not  be  bes- 
towed without  some  startling  evidence  to  show  that  they  are 
deserved.  "  Look,"  he  will  be  told,  "at  the  lower  classes  in 
these  nations.  They  may  be  less  flagrantly  superstitious  than 
those  in  Romish  countries.  Are  they  less  debased,  less  ani- 
mal, less  ignorant  ?  What  spiritual  influence  has  been  exerted 
over  them  ?" — "  Look,"  it  will  be  said  again,  "  at  the  upper 
classes.  The  priests  are  less  obnoxious  to  them  than  the 
Romish  priests  are  to  those  among  whom  they  dwell.  Is  not 
this  because  it  is  more  clearly  understood  that  they  shall  be 


.3* 


298  COMPLAINTS  OF  THEM. 

left  to  themselves,  that  their  vices  and  their  wrong  doings  to 
those  who  are  under  their  influence  shall  not  be  noticed  ;  that 
the  priest  shall  abdicate  his  functions  as  a  spiritual  reprover, 
and  shall  be  content  to  be  reckoned  a  safety-valve  of  the  social 
machine,  or  as  some  insignificant  accessory  to  it,  which  no  one 
will  disturb  until  it  begins  to  move'?  Certain  doctrines  lie  is 
to  believe,  certain  words  he  is  to  repeat,  certain  acts  he  is  to 
go  through  ;  what  have  those  doctrines,  Words,  acts,  to  do  with 
men  not  of  his  profession  ; — often,  what  have  they  to  do  with 
him  ?  They  are  charms  to  keep  the  different  classes  of  a  coun- 
try in  those  positions  to  each  other,  which  the  laws  and  con- 
ventions of  the  land  have  assigned  them.  And  whither,"  it  is 
asked,  "  are  these  nations  tending  ?  Are  not  material  gratifi- 
cations becoming  more  and  more  the  only  prizes  which  they 
are  setting  before  themselves  ?  Is  not  the  pursuit  of  wealth 
the  only  great  means  of  winning  that  prize  ?  Are  not  art, 
lice,  religion,  valued  just  so  far  as  they  contribute  to  make 
the  possession  of  money  more  agreeable  or  the  search  for  it 
more  secure  ?  Is  it  here  that  we  are  to  look  for  a  Holy  Catho- 
lic Church  ;  can  we  find  tokens  here  that  a  Spirit  of  lloli- 
and  Love  is  dwelling  among  men  ?" 
What  use  can  there  be  in  shutting  one's  ears  to  such  words 
?  Is  it  not  better  to  take  in  the  full  force  of  them, 
and  to  meditate  on  them  silently  ?  For  so  we  may  in  due  time 
discover,  not  the  secret  of  acquiescence  in  the  evils  which  press 
upon  us,  but  the  secret  of  deliverance  from  them.  Those  who 
are  flying  to  Rome  expect  that  a  miraculous  illumination  will 
some  day  enable  them  to  see  the  anomalies  which  now  shock 
them  in  its  system,  quite  differently.  It  is  probable  that  a 
blindness,  (which  may  be  also  miraculous),  will  by  degrees  save 
them  from  the  unhappiness  of  seeing  these  anomalies  at  all.  We 
should  wish  and  pray,  in  proportion  as  we  love  our  country, 
that  we  may  not  shrink  from  contemplating   one  of  its  sins 


SPIRITUAL   SECTS*.  299 

which  are  our  own,  but  that  God's  light  may  show  them  to  us 
just  as  they  are. 

III.  Perhaps  the  student  may  find  some  relief  in  turning 
from  both  these  spectacles  to  a  number  of  particular  societies, 
which  declare  that  the  so-called  Catholic  body,  and  the  bodies 
which  pretend  to  be  National  Churches,  have  equally  mistaken 
the  foundation  on  which  a  Church  ought  to  rest.  He  must 
needs  be  attracted  by  their  statements,  not  only  because  they 
point  out  evils  which  he  has  himself  noticed  in  their  opponents, 
but  because  they  affirm  that  the  true  spiritual  principle  is  with 
them.  "  The  Church,"  they  say,  "  cannot  be  a  mere  world. 
It  must  be  a  body  of  men  chosen  out  of  the  world.  It  cannot 
be  a  body  merely  held  together  by  certain  external  professions. 
It  must  consist  of  those  who  are  drawn  by  a  Divine  Spirit  to 
confess  a  Divine  Lord."  What  data  can  sound  more  hopeful 
than  these  ?  How  likely  it  seems  that  here  at  last  the  feet  of 
weary  pilgrims  will  find  some  resting-place  ;  that  here  we  have 
arrived  at  the  secret  which  has  escaped  anxious  and  earnest 
men  for  so  many  generations  !  There  is  much  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  all  sects  to  favor  this  opinion.  Who  can  deny  the  fer- 
vent zeal  against  injustice  and  evil  which  possessed  the  leaders ; 
the  hearty  affection,  genial  sympathy,  passionate  self-devotion 
of  the  followers  ?  Who  can  say  that  they  were  only  denounc- 
ing other  men,  and  not  uttering  the  deepest  conviction  of  their 
own  hearts  ?  If  they  were  sometimes  unjust  and  violent,  their 
fierce  language  was  often  the  indication  of  a  loving  rather  than 
of  a  hating  spirit ;  a  wise  man  who  was  the  object  of  it  would 
have  liked  it  much  better  than  the  smooth  and  civil  speeches 
of  less  cordial  foes.  '  A  Spirit — yes,  the  Spirit  of  truth — there 
must  have  been  among  these  men ;  their  sect  would  not  have 
survived  them  for  a  century,  or  even  a  year,  if  it  had  been 
merely  gathered  for  a  purpose  of  spite  or  faction. 

A  person  who  has  arrived  at  this  conviction  will  not  be  driven 
from  it  by  any  criticisms  or  denunciations  of  those  who  oppose 


300  *  DESPONDED 

these  sects.  But  what  if  be  should  hear  deep  groans  arising 
from  the  midst  of  them,  from  the  very  persons  who  have  been 
educated  in  them,  from  those  who  have  learnt  to  despise,  and 
have  continued  to  despise,  the  bodies  whence  they  have  gone 
out  ?  What  if  the  complaints  of  them  should  be  of  this  kind, 
— that  they  are  not  spiritual  bodies  at  all,  but  formal  and 
worldly  ;  not  asserters  of  moral  freedom,  but  great  restrained 
of  it ;  that  they  are  bitter  against  each  other,  seldom  at  pe; 
within  ;  that  the  best  praise  which  can  be  bestowed  upon  the 
best  man  in  any  one  of  these  bodies, — the  praise  which  his 
admirers  always  dwell  upon — is  that  he  has  emancipated 
himself  from  the  ordinary  habits  and  temper  of  it?  Such  is 
the  testimony,  not  of  hard  judges,  but  of  sufferers.  And  if 
so,  can  we  find  among  these  Beets  the  resemblance  of  that 
Church  of  which  St  Paul  spoke  as  being  one  Body,  into  which 
all  had  been  baptized  by  one  Spirit  ? 

But  if  no  one  of  these  separate  inquiries  has  led  to  any  satis- 
factory result,  how  much  more  unsatisfactory  would  the  com- 
parison of  them  seem  to  be  !  What  an  impression  that  must 
leave  upon  every  mind  of  conflict,  strife,  contradiction,  in  th< 
who  bear  the  name  of  tho  one  Lord  !  What  utter  despair  it 
must  awaken  in  him  of  all  Unity,  unless,  indeed,  men  can  agree 
that  they  are  not  spiritual  beings  ;  that  they  are  not.  connected 
with  an  invisible  world  at  all ;  that  they  are  not  children  of  a 
Father  in  Heaven  ;  that  they  have  no  ties  to  each  other  except 
such  as  are  produced  by  outward  animal  necessities,  which  one 
man  cannot  satisfy  without  the  assistance  of  his  neighbor. 
Were  it  possible  to  arrive  at  thai  state  of  feeling,  some  difficul- 
ties might  no  doubt  be  removed.  But  does  experience  show 
that  it  is  possible?  Would  perfect  unity  or  unbroken  discord 
— a  war  of  elements,  without  the  hope  or  chance  of  peace, — 
be  the  consequence,  if  it  were  ? 

To   one  revolving    that   frightful    possibility,    and    asking 
whether  there  must  not  be  some  way  out  of  this  labyrinth,  the 


HOPE.  301 

thought,  I  am  sure,  will  at  last  present  itself,  that  those  facts 
which  he  has  been  pondering,  offer  the  most  decisive  witness 
for,  not  against,  the  law  which  was  proclaimed  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost ;  for,  not  against,  the  assertion  that  it  is  the  law  of 
human  Society, — the  one  by  which  Society  is  governed,— how- 
ever much  men  may  be  denying  it  or  rebelling  against  it. 
Look  once  again  at  that  Church  which  boasts  to  be  One,  Holy, 
Catholic.  Is  her  boast  too  grand  a  one  ?  Has  she  believed 
too  firmly  that  a  Church  has  been  established  of  which  all  her 
sons  have  a  right  to  call  themselves  members,  that  a  Spirit  has 
been  given  of  which  they  all  have  a  right  to  be  partakers  ? 
Would  to  God  she  did  hold  that  belief!  What  a  differ- 
ent picture  her  history  would  present  if  she  had  held  it  stead- 
fastly !  If  she  had  been  convinced  that  Heaven  and  Earth 
were  brought  into  one, — that  a  real  fellowship  exists,  and  has 
been  manifested  between  them, — what  a  mass  of  contrivances 
to  produce  that  fellowship,  to  fill  up  the  chasm  between  the 
visible  and  the  invisible  world,  would  be  swept  away  !  What 
portentous  superstitions,  what  dark  idolatries,  would  vanish  if 
once  that  faith, — not  the  faith  of  her  enemies,  but  her  own, — 
was  really  accepted,  honestly  carried  out  1 

I  pressed  this  point  in  my  Essay  on  Regeneration ;  but  I 
could  not  then  speak  of  the  faith  which  the  Homish  Church 
professes  to  have  in  an  in-dwelling  Spirit,  a  Spirit  of  truth,  and 
love,  and  power,  which  is  to  bind  all  together  in  one  and  enable 
her  to  rule  the  nations.  I  could  not  then  point  out  what  the 
contradiction  was  between  this  profession  and  her  adoption  of 
those  practices  of  the  conjuror,  which  the  miracles  of  the  Gos- 
pel were  intended  to  explode;  of  the  practices  of  the  diploma- 
tist, from  which  she  ought  to  have  delivered  the  nations,  instead 
of  setting  the  vilest  example  of  them;  of  the  practices  of  the 
hard-hearted  worldly  oppressor,  crushing  the  spirit  under  the 
flesh,  the  conscience  under  casuistry,  the  reason  under  decrees, 
when  she  was  sent  to  teach  men  of  a  Father  who  had  claimed 


302  INNOCENT  III. 

them  as  his  sons,  of  a  Son  who  was  at  his  right  hand  for  them, 
of  a  Spirit  who  was  within  them  to  make  thorn  inheritors  of  His 
glory.  I  could  not  then  show  how  great  the  sin  was  which 
she  had  committed  in  assuming  that  St.  Peter  or  any  successor 
of  his,  could  be  the  Father  of  the  Church,  how  necessarily 
such  a  fiction  divides  earth  from  heaven,  and  makes  the  Church 
into  a  world. 

Like  the  Angelo  of  our  great  dramatist,  the  deputy  of  a  true 
ruler  has  played  his  tyrannical  and  hypocritical  tricks,  punish- 
ing others  for  the  crimes  which  he  commits  himself,  often  betray- 
ing the  innocence  which  he  is  commissioned  to  protect.  But, 
as  that  same  story  teaches  us,  the  Duke  is  not  really  absent 
from  his  government,  but  is  watching,  counteracting,  bringing 
to  an  altogether  different  issue,  the  plots  of  his  agent.  See 
how  the  Papa)  history  in  its  most  palmy  moment  bears  witn 
of  that  fact  The  policy  of  Innocent  III.  was  so  mysterious 
and  so  perfect,  that  a  modern  German  historian,  through  admi- 
ration of  it,  is  said  to  have  abandoned  the  faith  of  his  child- 
hood. M  What  but  a  divine  power,"  he  and  others  have  argued, 
"  could  have  enabled  a  man  to  rule  the  world  as  Innocent  did  ; 
to  guide  at  the  same  moment  the  Latin  kingdom  in  Greece, 
which  he  did  not  assist  in  establishing,  but  which  he  knew  so 
well  how  to  use  when  it  was  established;  to  nurse  a  young 
monarch  for  Germany,  who  might  hereafter  make  the  Empire 
the  tool  of  the  Papacy ;  to  set  his  foot  on  the  prostrate  mon- 
arch of  England  ?"  A  wonderful  spectacle  assuredly ;  but  there 
is  another  as  well  worthy  of  our  study.  Is  it  not  as  clear  an 
evidence  of  a  divine  government  in  the  world,  that  all  these 
exquisite  plots  came  to  nothing ;  that  the  reviving  energies  of 
Greece  so  soon  shattered  the  Latin  kingdom  in  pieces;  that 
Frederic  II.  became,  not  the  instrument  of  Popes,  but  their 
most  hated  enemy  and  scourge  ;  that  Stephen  Langton,  forced 
into  his  see  by  interdicts  and  excommunications,  became  the 
asserter  of  English  independence,  the  punisher  of  the  monarch 


THE  SIN  OF  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.  303 

who  betrayed  his  trust,  the  author  of  the  Charter  ?  Is  it  not 
as  great  a  proof  of  a  spiritual  power  in  the  world,  that  the 
feeble  Francis  of  Assisi,  by  the  one  thought  that  Christ  is  the 
friend  of  the  poor,  did  so  much  more  to  preserve  and  extend 
the  Church, — even  to  support  the  Papacy  itself, — than  the  hun- 
dred-handed Pope,  with  all  his  resources  of  outward  strength 
and  unrivalled  craft?  Is  it  nothing  that  Louis  IX.,  because 
he  was  a  faithful  national  sovereign  who  loved  justice,  was  felt 
to  be  such  a  saint  as  no  Pope  had  ever  been  ? 

Thus,  then,  every  oppression  and  crime  that  has  been  rightly 
imputed  to  Rome,  has  arisen  from  her  not  confessing  in  deed, 
as  she  has  confessed  in  words,  that  a  spirit  has  appeared  to 
build  up  a  one  Holy  Catholic  Church.  Every  healthful  influ- 
ence she  has  ever  exercised, — or  Christian  men  and  women 
have  ever  exercised  in  her  name, — has  proceeded  from  that 
belief. 

And  may  not  all  the  sins,  which,  with  no  less  truth,  have 
been  imputed  to  Protestant  National  Churches,  be  traced  to 
the  same  unbelief;  all  that  has  been  good  to  the  same  faith  ? 
Have  they  erred  from  their  too  great  patriotism,  their  too  zeal- 
ous determination  not  to  give  it  up  for  emperor  or  pope,  for 
man  or  devil ;  from  their  fixed  purpose  that  no'  religion  what- 
ever should  rob  them  of  their  common  morality,  or  persuade 
them  to  do  evil  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  Grod  ?  No  ;  but  they 
have  erred  in  not  thinking  that  the  Spirit  of  G-od  was  with 
them,  to  enable  them  to  maintain  their  national  steadfastness, 
to  fulfil  their  common  duties,  to  support  their  love  of  truth 
against  the  temptations  which  are  continually  overpowering  it; 
to  purify  their  patriotism  of  exclusiveness,  their  zeal  for  the 
plain  and  the  practical,  of  sordidness  ;  to  enable  them  to  feel 
that  all  citizens  of  the  same  commonwealth,  however  different 
their  ranks  and  civil  positions,  are,  in  the  highest  sense,  equal ; 
to  give  them  the  freedom,  the  manliness,  the  sympathy  with 
those  of  other  races,  which  selfishness  is  taking  from  them. 


304  AND  OF  SECTS. 

And  why  have  those  sects  I  spoke  of  become  so  partial,  so 
hard,  so  cruel  ?  Is  it  because  their  forefathers  were  wrong  in 
telling  them  that  the  Spirit  was  seeking  to  bind  them  in  one, 
and  that  no  mere  external  bond  could  bind  them  ?  Surely 
not ;  this  lesson  taken  home  to  the  heart,  makes  men  first  true, 
in  due  time  Catholic,  leading  them  to  cling  mightily  to  the 
special  conviction  God  has  wrought  in  them,  afterwards  ena- 
bling them  to  feel  the  necessity  of  other  convictions  to  sustain 
that.  It  is  .the  loss  of  this  faith,  it  is  the  substitution  of  some 
petty  external  badge  and  symbol  of  theirs,  for  the  belief  and 
confession  of  a  Divine  Spirit,  which  is  making  them  impatient 
of  dogmas,  yet  fiercely  dogmatic ;  eager  to  rob  other  men  of 
their  treasures  ;  feeble  in  their  hold  upon  their  own.  It  is  this 
which  tempts  their  BOm  sk  whether  the  earth  has  no  other 

foundations  than  those  which  th  -  have  laid,  often  to  arrive 

at  the  miserable  conclusion  that  its  foundations  are  built  on 
rotten 

But  it  is  not  so  !  however  much  excuse  they  may  have  for 
suspecting  it.  There  has  no  promise  of  Scripture  been  proved 
nugatory  ;  there  is  none  which  has  not  been  fulfilled  more 
than  men  dreamed  of,  which  will  not  be  fulfilled  to  the  very 
hitter.     I  have  said   there  were  !i;  id  raurmurers  in  the 

Church  at  Jerusalem.  The  promise  was  not,  that  there  should 
not  be  these  in  the  time  to  come.  Every  form  of  corruption 
and  heresy  was  discovered  by  St.  Paul  in  the  Churches  to 
which  he  wrote.     There  was  no  pit  iven,  that  these  should 

not  appear  in  the  later  time.  St.  John  said  there  were  many 
Antichrists  in  his  day.  It  is  no  stumbling-block  to  our  faith, 
if  there  are  many  in  ours.  But  it  would  be  the  utter  uproot- 
ing of  our  faith  if  we  found  that  there  was  no  such  body  as 
the  Apostles  told  U3  there  should  be,  with  which  all  lying  and 
contention  should  be  at  war ;  if  there  was  no  Spirit  dwelling 
in  that  body  against  which  these  heresies  and  corruptions  and 
Antichrists  are  fighting,  and  which  will  at  least  prevail  against 


NULLA  SALUS  EXTKA  ECCLESIAM.  305 

them.  Romanists,  Protestant  nations,  all  se^ts,  declare  that 
there  is  such  a  body,  and  that  there  is  such  a  Spirit.  Their 
words  bear  witness  of  it ;  their  crimes,  which  outrage  those 
words,  bear  witness  of  it  still  more. 

And  thus  we  are  enabled  to  understand  better  than  by  all 
artificial  definitions,  how  a  Church  differs  from  a  world.  "  The 
Comforter"  our  Lord  says,  "  si hall  convince  the  world."  When 
He  speaks  to  the  disciples,  He  says,  "  He  shall  come  and  dwell 
*  in  you."  .  The  world  contains  the  elements  of  which  the  Church 
is  composed.  In  the  Church,  these  elements  are  penetrated 
by  a  uniting,  reconciling  power.  The  Church  is,  therefore, 
human  society  in  its  normal  state ;  the  World,  that  same  soci- 
ety irregular  and  abnormal.  The  world  is  the  Church  without 
God ;  the  Church  is  the  world  restored  to  its  relation  with 
God,  taken  back  by  Him  into  the  state  for  which  He  created 
it.  Deprive  the  Church  of  its  Centre,  and  you  make  it  into 
a  world.  If  you  give  it  a  false  Centre,  as  the  Romanists  have 
done,  still  preserving  the  sacraments,  forms,  creeds,  which 
speak  of  the  true  Centre,  there  necessarily  comes  out  that  gro* 
tesque  hybrid  which  we  witness,  a  world  assuming  all  the  dig- 
nity and  authority  of  a  church, — a  Church  practising  all  the 
worst  fictions  of  a  world  ;  the  world  assuming  to  be  heavenly, 
— a  Church  confessing  itself  to  be  of  the  earth,  earthly. 

From  this  contradiction  a  number  of  others  proceed  :  I  will 
take  one  which  will  serve  as  the  specimen  of  a.  whole  class. 
The  doctrine,  Nulla  salus  extra  Ecclesiam,  sounds  the  cruel- 
lest of  all  doctrines;  it  has  become  so  in  fact.  But  consider 
the  origin  of  it.  A  man  possessed  with  the  conviction  that 
human  beings  are  not  meant  to  live  in  a  world  where  every 
one  is  divided  from  his  neighbor, — in  which  there  is  no  uniting, 
fusing  principle,  in  which  each  lives  to  himself,  and  for  him- 
self,— bids  them  fly  from  that  chaos.  For  he  cries,  "  There  is 
n  universe  for  you  !  Nay,  more,  there  is  a  Father's  house  open 
to  you.     God  is  not  the  fcowning,  distant  tyrant  the  world 


306  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  MEANING  OF  IT. 

takes  Him  to  be  ;  not  split  up  into  a  multitude  of  broken  forms 
and  images ;  not  One  to  whom  we  are  to  offer  a  cold  civil  lip 
service,  by  way  of  conciliating  Him  or  doing  Him  honor.  He 
is  the  Ilea  1  of  a  family;  His  Son  has  proved  you  to  be  mem- 
bers of  it;  His  Spirit  is  given  you  that  you  may  know  Him  as 
He  is,  not  as  your  hard  material  hearts  represent  Him  to  you. 
Come  into  this  Ark !  Take  up  your  place  in  this  Family  ! 
Here  is  deliverance  and  health  !  Nulla  sains  extra  Ecclesiam. 
No  comfort,  no  health,  no  peace,  while  you  count  yourselves 
exiles  from  God,  strangers  to  your  brethren." 

Is  this  a  hard  saying  ?  Is  it  not  full  of  gentleness,  benignity, 
love?  But  the  Church  becomes  a  world-Church  ;  a  Church 
that  speaks  of  a  Father  in  Heaven,  and  sets  up  a  Father  on 
earth  ;  that  introduces  earthly  mediators  because  the  Mediator 
has  gone  away,  and  it  is  needful  to  make  Him  propitious ; 
that  boasts  itself  to  be  endued  with  a  Spirit  of  truth,  and  can 
only  exhibit  the  powers  of  the  Spirit  in  doing  untrue  acts  : 
then  the  phrase  necessarily  assumes,  not  a  different  meaning 
from  this,  but  one  that  is  directly  opposite  to  it.  "  Nulla  sains 
extra  Ecclesiam !  God  is  ready  to  destroy  you.  We  can 
save  you  from  Him.  Think  what  a  risk  you  are  incurring. 
Y<m  may  be  wrong !  Then  perdition  is  certain."  Oh,  doc- 
trine of  devils,  if  such  is  to  be  found  in  earth  or  in  hell !  Surely, 
vation  and  Damnation  become  identical,  if  the  soul  is  saved 
by  the  loss  of  its  trust  in  God,  by  conceiving  Him  to  be  like 
those  demons  from  whom  the  Apostles  said  that  Christ  came 
to  deliver  mankind,  as  unlike  as  possible  to  the  perfect  ima 
which  was  shown  forth  in  Him. 

We  cannot,   however,   cast   stones   at  the  Romanists,  for 

adopting  this  notion  of  safety.     We  have  fallen  into  it  almost 

much  as  they  have.     It  belongs  especially  to  our  monev- 

:ting  habits.  If  some  wander  from  our  Church  to  Rome, 
because  they  believe  that,  on  the  whole,  they  have  a  better 
chance  of  escaping  destruction  there,  we  have  ourselves  to 


DUTY  OF  OUR  CHURCH.  307 

blame ;  we  have  sown  the  wind  of  selfishness,  and  we  must 
reap  the  whirlwind  of  desertion.  But  it  would  be  a  great  mis- 
•take  and  injustice,  to  suppose  that  the  selfish  motive  is  the 
exclusive  one,  even  in  the  worst  cases,  or  the  predominant  one 
in  any  better  men.  Love  and  Selfishness  are  strangely,  inex- 
tricably blended.  The  true  idea  of  Safety  is  mixed  with  its 
accursed  counterfeit.  They  long  for  a  larger  fellowship,  a 
Father's  house,  a  Spirit  who  can  make  them  brothers  with  all 
men,  Greeks,  Romanists,  Protestants.  The  wish  may  be 
shrivelled  and  contracted  by  a  thousand  causes  ;  but  it  is  there  ; 
and  if  we  cannot  gratify  it, — if  we  cannot  tell  them  that  they 
are  inheritors  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  earth  and  heaven,  and  that 
the  Spirit  of  the  Father  and  Son  is  with  them — in  order  that 
the  inheritance  may  not  be  a  nominal,  but  a  real  one, — we 
shall  not  keep  them,  we  ought  not  to  keep  them.  They  will 
try  whether  that  blessing  wiiich  our  creeds  and  prayers  assure 
them  is  theirs,  can  be  obtained  elsewhere ;  and  if  they  meet  with 
bitter  disappointment,  or  take  up  with  a  wretched  substitute 
for  the  infinite  good  which  God  has  taught  them  to  feel  neces- 
sary, is  not  our  unbelief  the  cause?  And  is  not  the  only  way 
of  preserving  our  National  Church,  to  declare  solemnly, habitu- 
ally, perseveringly,  that  it  does  bear  this  witness  not  for  itself 
alone,  but  on  behalf  of  the  Romanist  and  the  Protestant  Sec- 
tarian ?  yes !  that  it  is  ready  to  make  any  sacrifices  if  it  can 
but  bear  that  witness  effectually  ? 

I  do  not  indeed  say  that  this  witness  must  come  from  us 
alone,  perhaps  not  from  us  chiefly.  Let  it  come  from  where 
it  will,  God  must  be  the  author  of  it.  He  may  see  fit  to  bring 
this  truth  with  mighty  power  to  the  heart  of  some  Italian 
monk,  who  has  been  seeking  in  vain  to  make  himself  holy,  and 
discovers  that  holiness  must  come  from  a  Spirit  of  Holiness, 
who  is  also  a  Spirit  of  Unity.  It  may  come  to  some  Romish 
Bishop  as  he  listens  to  the  Veni  Creator  Spiritus,  and  believes 
that  the  sevenfold  gifts  are  intended  for  him.     It  may  come  to 


308  THE  TRINITY. 

some  earnest  member  of  a  Protestant  sect,  feeling  that  the 
Spirit  of  Truth  cannot  be  the  Spirit  of  narrow  It  may 

come  to  some  man  lying  outside  of  all  churches  and  sects,  and 
asking  whether  he  can  be  intended  to  be  only  a  part  of  an  un- 
sympathising,  forlorn  world.  To  whichever  it  comes  first,  the 
faith  will  pass  rapidly,  as  by  an  electrical  chain  from  one  to 
another.  It  will  break  through  all  barriers  of  opinion  and  cir- 
cumstance. Xone  will  know  how  he  has  received  it,  because 
all  will  have  received  it  from  that  Spirit  who  bloweth  where 
He  listeth,  and  of  whom  you  cannot  say  whence  He  cometh 
or  whither  He  goeth. 

But  seeing  that -what  appear  to  us  the  most  irregular  cur- 
rents obey  a  fixed  and  eternal  law,  we  may  be  sure  that  that 
Spirit  will  work  as  He  has  always  worked ;  that  He  will  change 
nothing  and  yet  will  make  all  things  new.  That  mighty  wTonder 
which  we  behold  every  year  when  the  selfsame  roots  and  stems, 
which  were  the  symbols  of  all  that  is  hard,  and  dry,  and  sepa- 
rate, become  clothed  with  verdure,  full  of  life,  and  joy,  and 
music,  will  be  exhibited  in  the  moral  world.  No  form  will  be 
cast  away,  no  ordinance  will  be  treated  as  worthless,  nothing 
which  has  expressed  the  thought  or  belief  of  any  man  will  be 
found  unmeaning,  because  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  will 
call  forth  every  sleeping  and  latent  power  into  activity,  every- 
thing that  has  been  dead  into  life,  all  that  has  been  divided  into 
harmony.  Only  the  miserable  counterfeits  will  pass  away. 
Whatever  has  been  true,  if  it  has  been  ever  so  weak. and  bro- ' 
ken,  will  find  its  place  in  that  creation  which  God  has  declared 
to  be  very  good. 

But  have  I  not  spoken  again  and  again  in  this  Essay 
of  a  Father,  a  Son,  and  a  Spirit  ?  Has  not  all  my  comfort  in 
the  past,  my  hope  for  the  future,  been  connected  with  the  re- 
velation of  that  Name,. with  the  full  acknowledgment  of  it? 
Even  so,  my  Unitarian  brother.  And  all  the  longings  you 
have  for  fellowship,  and  freedom,  and  unity,  for  the  breaking 


CONCLUSION.  309 

down  of  barriers,  for  a  universal  comprehension,  point  the  same 
way.  I  have  not  deceived  you  by  pretending  to  agree  with 
you  where  I  caunot.  I  am  more  entirely  at  issue  with  you  in 
your  denials  than  those  who  denounce  you  most.  I  have  come 
now  to  the  root  of  all  your  denials,  to  that  Name  which  i"  be-~ 
lieve  to  be  the  ground  of  human  life,  and  of  human  society.  If 
you  have  borne  with  me  so  far — considering  many  of  my 
words,  no  doubt,  enthusiastical,  antiquated,  obscure,  foolish, 
yet  still  I  hope  now  and  then  detecting  a  sense  in  them  which 
answers  to  a  sense  in  you, — will  you  listen  while  I  tell  you  why 
I  could  not  believe  that  a  Trinity  in  Unity  is  a  foundation  for 
myself  to  rest  upon,  if  I  did  not  also  regard  it  as  a  foundation 
for  you  and  for  all  men  ? 


ESSAY    XVI. 


ON  THE  TRINITY  IN  UNITY. 


My  first  ESssay  was  on  Charity;  this  will  also  be  on  Charity. 
I  could  not  find  that  a  charity  which  believed  all  thingB,  hoped 
all  things,  endured  all  things  had  its  root  on  this  earth,  or  in  the 

ill  of  any  man  who  dwells  on  this  earth.  Yet  it  seemed  to  me 
that  sueh  a  Charity  was  needed  to  make  this  earth  what  it  ought 
to  be,  and  that  human  heart-  have  a  profound  sense  of  its  neces- 
sity for  them,  an  infinite  craving  topo  it,  and  be  filled  with 
it.  Something  stood  in  the  way  of  the  good  which  the  earth  sighs 
for,  and  which  man  sighs  for.  A  vision  of  Sin  rose  up  before 
us  confronting  the  vision  of  Charity.  It  was  portentous,  for  it 
seemed  part  of  the  very  creature  who  had  the  dream  of  a  per- 
fect good.  But  he  disclaimed  it,  he  tried  to  account  for  it  bv 
some  accidents  of  his  position,  or  by  some  essential  error  in  his 
constitution ;  at  last  he  said,  I  have  yielded  to  an  oppressor  ; 
an  Evil  Spirit  has  withdrawn  me  from  my  true  Lord.  Then 
arose  the  question,  Who  is  this  true  Lord  ?  where  is  he  to  be 
found?  Righteousness  was  felt  tobeevenmore  closely  intertwined 
with  the  being  of  the  man  than  Evil ;  for  a  while  he  was  disposed 

(3101 


RECAPITULATION.  31 J 

to  claim  it  as  his  own  ;  suffering,  and  the  sense  of  an  infinite  con- 
tradiction, did  not  deliver  him  from  that  belief.  .But  some  one 
there  was  who  led  him  to  cry  for  a  Redeemer,  to  be  sure  that 
He  lived,  to  be  sure  that  Righteousness  was  in  Him,  and 
therefore  was  Man's. 

Was  this  Redeemer,  so  near  to  man,  so  inseparable  from 
man,  of  earthly  race  ?  The  vision  of  a  Son  of  God  rose  upon 
us  ;  a  thousand  different  traditions  pointed  to  it ;  it  took  the 
most  various  forms;  but  the  heart  of  man  said,  "  There  must 
be  one  in  whom  all  these  meet ;  there  must  be  One  who 
did  not  rise  from  manhood  into  Godhead,  but  who  can  exhibit 
the  perfection  of  manhood,  because  he  has  the  perfection  of 
Godhead."  Is  the  perfection  of  manhood  then  compatible 
with  the  infirmities  and  corruptions  of  which  men  have 
become  heirs  ?  The  mythologies  of  the  world  said,  "  It  must 
be  so,  we  need  Incarnations ;  our  deliverers  must  share  our 
flesh,  our  sorrows ;"  yes  !  they  could  not  stop  there — "  our 
sins."  The  philosophers  said,  "  It  cannot  be  so  ;  the  Divine 
Nature  must  be  free  from  the  contact  of  that  which  debases 
us,  of  that  from  which  we  ourselves  need  emancipation."  They 
could  show  how  men,  forming  the  Gods  after  their  own  images, 
had  glorified  and  deified  what  was  most  immoral  and  base. 
The  Scripture  spoke  to  us  of  the  Son  of  God  taking  the  flesh 
of  man,  entering  into  all  the  infirmities  of  man,  bearing  the 
sins  of  man,  so  showing  forth  the  purity,  compassion,  love,  of 
His  Father. 

But  the  sense  in  men  of  a  separation  from  the  God  to  whom 
they  were  meant  to  be  united,  had,  we  found,  produced  innu- 
merable schemes  for  bringing  about  a  reconciliation.  The 
Scriptures  told  us  of  an  Atonement,  originating  with  God  ; 
made  with  men  in  His  Son ;  who  entirely  trusted  and  entirely 
obeyed  His  Father ;  who  willingly  entered  into  the  death  of 
man  ;  who  made  the  perfect  Sacrifice  which  took  away  Sin ; 
whose  dqath  was  the  satisfaction  to   the   Divine  Love  of  the 


312  RECAPITULATION. 

t  Father ;  the  expression  of  that  wrath  against  Evil  which  is  a 
part  of  Love ;  the  satisfaction  of  man's  yearnings  for  recon- 
ciliation with'  God.  Yet  Death,  the  Grave,  the  Abyss  beyond, 
are  the  dark  contradictions  for  human  beings ;  He  could  not 
.be  a  perfect  deliverer  wTho  had  not  entered  into  them,  or  who 
remained  under  their  power.  The  idea  of  a  bodily  Resurrec- 
tion, we  found,  had  been  accepted  by  men,  not  as  a  fact  to  be 
attested  by  a  great  amount  of  evidence,  but  as  the  inevitable 
issue  of  the  previous  revelation.  If  there  is  a  Son  of  God,  a 
Lord  of  man,  He  must  rise.  What  did  such  a  Resurrection 
imply  ?  The  Scripture  speaks  of  it  as  implying  a  Justification 
of  Gentile  as  well  as  of  Jew ;  that  is,  of  every  man,  who  might 
therefore  believe  in  Christ  and  acquire  His  Righteousness.  AVe 
i\v  how  Christians  had  evaded  this  declaration,  and  the  evi- 
dence of  it  which  their  baptism  offered,  limiting  the  blessing 
by  certain  rules  and  measures  of  theirs,  even  using  the  witr 

f  it  as  an  excuse  for  doubt1,  and  for  new  efforts  of  their  own 
to  make  themselves  righteous;  then,  at  last,  discovering  that 
faith  in  God's  Justification  is  the  only  condition  of  doing  any 
good  acts.  But  this  faith  of  each  individual  man,  that  God 
h;id  justified  him  by  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  and  was  invit- 
ing him  to  habitual  trust,  implied  something  more.  We  dis- 
covered in  the  belief  of  Christians  the  acknowledgment  of  a 
Regcneratio?i,  effected  not  for  individual  men  merely,  but  for 
human  society  in  the  true  Lord  and  Head  of  it. 

This  belief,  however  feebly  and  imperfectly  held  by  the 
Church,  had  nevertheless  vindicated  itself  by  the  experience 
of  history,  and  enabled  us  to  reconcile  the  doctrines  of  eminent 
moralists  respecting  the  constitution  of  man,  with  the  fullest 
admission  of  actual  departures  from  it.  For,  if  the  Resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  declared  that  men,  in  spite  of  all  that  seemed  to 
put  them  at  a  distance  from  God,  w7ere  recognised  by  him  as 
his  children  on  earth,  the  Ascension  of  Christ  in  their  nature 
proclaimed  that  they  did  not  belong  to  earth  ;  that  they  were 


RECAPITULATION.  313 

spiritual  beings,  capable  of  holding  converse  with  Him  who  is 
a  Spirit ;  able  to  do  so,  because  that  Sou  who  had  taken  their 
flesh,  and  had  offered  it  up  to  God,  and  had  glorified  it,  had 
said  that  His  body  and  blood  should  be  their  food  and  nour- 
ishment. This  belief  of  the  Ascension  as  the  great  triumph 
for  man,  was  greatly  shaken  by  a  prevalent  notion  that  Christ, 
being  absent  now  and  not  exercising  the  functions  of  royalty  or 
judgment,  will  assume  them  at  some  distant  day  ;  and  be  sub- 
ject again  to  earthly  limitations.  It  wTas  therefore  needful  to 
show,  that  the  Judgment  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  and  the  Creed, 
implied  the  continual  presence  of  Christ,  the  daily  exposure  of 
men  and  nations  to  His  cognisance  and  censure,  the  assurance 
that  He  will  be  manifested,  not  in  some  humbler  condition,  but 
as  He  is,  to  the  consciences  and  eyes  of  men  ;  for  the  putting 
down  of  all  evil,  and  the  establishment  of  righteousness.  But 
though  the  minds  of  men  had  always  felt  that  they  must  look 
upwards  to  some  Ruler  above  them,  they  had  equally  confessed 
the  presence  of  an  Inspirer  within  them.  The  Christian  reve- 
lation, we  found,  corresponded  as  much  to  these  anticipations, 
as  to  any  which  we  had  considered  before.  It  explained  to  us 
whence  all  Inspirations  had  proceeded,  who  was  the  Author 
of  them,  how  they  are  to  be  received  how  they  may  be  abused. 
The  full  Revelation,  with  that  which  was  the  preparation  for  it, 
had  been  recorded  to  us  in  a  book  which  had  been  the  treasure 
of  the  Church,  the  witness  of  the  emancipation  of  mankind,  the 
assurance  of  a  Comforter  who  should  come  to  the  ages  follow- 
ing Christ's  Ascension,  in  a  way  He  had  not  come  to  those 
which  preceded  it.  I  inquired  whether  events  have  justified 
this  assurance.  I  endeavored  to  show  that  there  bad  been  such 
a  sense  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment  in  the  latter 
periods  of  the  world's  history,  as  cannot  be  traced  in  the  ear- 
lier, and  as  could  only  have  proceeded  from  the  teaching  of  a 
Person,  such  as  our  Lord  describes  to  us.  But  finally,  we 
were  told  this  Person  would  not  only  convince  a  world,  but 
14 


314  THE  TRINITY  NOT  A  FRESH  SUBJECT. 

be  the  establisher  of  a  One  Holy  Catholic  Church.  The 
difficulty  of  accepting  this  statement  was  very  great.  A 
certain  body  had  claimed  to  be  the  one  Catholic  Church,  a 
number  of  bodies  had  claimed  to  be  Churches ;  they  had 
denounced  each  other ;  there  had  been  that  in  all  which  con- 
tradicted the  idea  the  Scripture  sets  forth  of  holiness,  unity, 
universality.  But  this  contradiction  showed  that  the  Scrip- 
ture had  revealed  the  true  law  of  human  society  ;  for  that  one 
body  and  these  different  bodies  had  not  become  partial,  tyran- 
nical, godless  by  maintaining  too  strongly  that  Earth  and  Hea- 
ven had  been  reconciled,  and  that  the  Spirit  had  come  down 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son  to  establish  that  reconciliation  ; 
but  by  acting  as  if  Heaven  and  Earth  were  still  separated,  as 
if  we  had  still  to  effect  for  ourselves  that  which  the  Scripture 
declares  that  God  has  effected,  as  if  there  were  no  Spirit  to 
unite  us  with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  with  each  other. 
To  this  cause, — no  other  was  adequate, — we  could  trace  the 
want  of  holiness,  catholicity,  unity,  in  the  Church.  This  unbe- 
lief being  removed,  all  that  man  has  dreamed  of,  all  that  God 
has  promised,  must  be  accomplished. 

I  have  not,  then,  to  enter  upon  a  new  subject  in  this  Essay. 
I  am  not  speaking  for  the  first  time,  of  the  Trinity  in  Unity. 
I  have  been  speaking  of  it  throughout.  Each  consciousness 
that  we  have  discovered  in  man,  each  fact  of  Revelation  that 
has  answered  to  it,  has  been  a  step  in  the  discovery  and  demon- 
stration of  this  truth.  I  should  be  abandoning  the  method  to 
which  I  have  endeavored  strictly  to  adhere,  if  I  admitted  that 
now,  at  last,  I  have  come  upon  a  mere  dogma  which  had  no 
support  but  tradition,  or  inferences  from  texts  of  Scripture  ;  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  upon  a  great  philosophical  tenet  which  wise 
men  may  deduce  from  reason  or  find  latent  in  nature,  but  with 
which  the  poor  way-farer  has  nothing  to  do.  AYe  may  owe 
much  to  tradition  for  giving  expression  to  the  faith  in  a  Trinity  ; 

ts  of  Scripture  may  confirm  it;  the  context  of  Scripture 


OBJECT  OF  THIS  ESSAY.  315 

may  bring  it  out  in  beautiful  harmony  with  all  the  divine  dis- 
coveries to  man.  Philosophy  may  have  seen  indications  of  a 
Trinity  in  the  forms  and  principles  of  the  universe,  in  the  con- 
stitution of  man  himself.  But  unless  we  are  utterly  inconsis- 
tent with  all  that  has  been  said  hitherto,  these  can  be  but 
indexes  and  guides  to  a  Name  which  is  implied  in  our  thoughts, 
acts,  words,  in  our  fellowship  with  each  other  ;  without  which 
we  cannot  explain  the  utterances  of  the  poorest  peasant,  or  of 
the  greatest  sage ;  which  makes  thoughts  real,  prayers  pos- 
sible ;  which  brings  distinctness  out  of  vagueness,  unity  out  of 
division  ;  which  shows  us  how  in  fact,  and  not  merely  in  imag- 
ination, the  charity  of  God  may  find  its  reflex  and  expression 
in  the  charity  of  man,  and  the  charity  of  man  its  substance 
as  well  as  its  fruition  in  the  charity  of  God.  What  I  have  to 
do  in  this  Essay,  then,  is  certainly  not  to  bring  forward  argu- 
ments against  those  who  impugn  this  doctrine,  but  only  to  show 
how  each  portion  of  that  Name  into  which  we  are  baptized, 
answers  to  some  apprehension  and  anticipation  of  human 
beings ;  how  the  setting  up  of  one  part  of  the  Name  against 
another  has  been  the  cause  of  strife,  unrighteousness,  super- 
stition ;  why,  therefore,  the  acknowledgment  of  that  Name  in 
its  fulness  and  Unity,  is  Eternal  Life. 

I.  It  often  seems  to  us  a  great  contradiction  in  Greek  Mytho- 
logy, that  the  chief  of  the  Gods  should  be  represented  as  him- 
self subject  to  Fate.  We  do  not  enough  consider  what  a  real 
and  deep  comfort  the  Polytheist  found  in  this  thought.  A 
ruler  of  the  Elements  might  have  in  himself  all  the  vicissitudes 
which  nature  exhibits.  If  he  were  like  a  human  sovereign,  he 
might  have  all  the  caprices  of  a  human  sovereign.  This  faith 
in  Necessity  told  the  Greek  that  the  Universe  was  not,  after 
ail,  dependent  on  those  natural  vicissitudes  or  human  caprices, 
that  a  law  fixed  and  unchangeable  was  beneath  them  all.  At 
times,  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  Jove,  the  king  of  earth,  was  chain- 
ing down  all  the  aspirations  of  man,  was  fastening  to  a  rock, 


316  LAW  AND  WILL. 

and  tormenting  with  a  vulture,  the  champions  who  sought  to 
do  him  good,  to  make  him  freer  and  wiser.  What  a  relief  to 
think  that  Destiny  had  determined  the  period  of  this  captivity, 
and  of  the  tyranny  which  had  imposed  it !  And  yet  there  were 
times  when  the -sense  of  a  hard,  dry,  iron  rule, — an  irresistible 
necessity, — became  more  intolerable  than  the  government  of 
the  most  uncertain  king;  when  the  heart  fled  from  that  as  a 
horrible  oppression,  to  this  as  human  and  sympathetic.  Espe- 
cially these  words,  "  Father  of  Gods  and  men,"  touched  chords 
which  at  once  responded  to  them.  There  was  the  hint  of 
something  not  only  more  friendly  than  Fate,  but  more  mighty. 
The  will  in  man  leaps  up  to  acknowledge  a  Will  that  is  akin  to 
its  own,  and  that  may  govern  it. 

Through  all  the  Jewish  History, fixed  law,  grounded  on  the 
name  of  the  I  AM,  had  been  coming  forth  in  conjunction  with 
a  course  of  discipline  which  tho  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 

■<>b  was  declared  by  prophets  and  holy  men  to  be  carrying 
on  for  the  children  of  His  Covenant.  The  Law  asserted  that 
Which  was  right ;  nothing  could  alter  it;  to  violate  it  was  death. 
The  Jud  the  whole  earth  was  doing  right;  His  design  was 

to  make  His  people  right.  Christ  on  the  Mountain  announced 
the  Will  of  which  that  law  was  the  expression.  He  said  it  was 
the  Will  of  a  Father.  Here  is  the  root  and  substance  of  His 
revelation.  He  does  not  proclaim  a  Will  which  dispenses  with 
law  or  changes  it,  but  that  absolutely  righteous  and  true  Will 
of  which  it  affirms  the  existence,  but  which  it  cannot  make 

dual.  And  this  Will  is  the  Will  of  the  Father.  Beneath 
the  oame  of  the  God  of  Abraham,  this  was  concealed.  The 
sound  of  it  was  from  time  to  time  caught,  not  only  by  holy 
men  in  their  closets,  but  by  the  ordinary  worshipper.  The 
(ireek  heard  the  echo  of  it  from  his  Thessalian  hill.  Christ 
uttered  it. 

For   those  who  receive  His  m  e,  the  two  conceptions 

which  were  always  fighting  with  each  other,  always  trying  to 


HOW  POLYTHEISM   REVIVES.  317 

be  one,  are  actually  united.  There  is  the  perfect  rest  which 
comes  from  the  thought  that  there  can  be  no  caprice  in  the 
order  of  the  Universe, — that  right  can  never  become  wrong,  or 
wrong;  right ;  there  is  the  comfort  that  no  hard  fate  controls 
caprice,  that  the  Divine  Will  excludes  it.  The  fixed  and  dfche 
absolute  which  man  craves  for  as  the  support  of  his  being,  and 
of  all  creation,  is  there.  It  is  bound  inseparably  with  a  name 
which  speaks  of  Relation,  which  tells  him  what  he  was  sure 
must  be;  that  his  own  Will  has  an  author;  that  he  is  not 
merely  a  creature  of  the  highest  God,  but  a  child. 

All  is  peace  if  we  accept  this  as  a  Revelation, — as  a  Gospel 
from  God.  Reduce  it  again  into  the  conceptions  of  your  own 
mind, — make  your  anticipations,  not  the  test,  that  they  must  be, 
but  the  measure  of  the  Revelation, — and  all  becomes  war  again. 
An  iron  necessity  for  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ,  as 
much  as  for  all  before  it,  becomes  that  to  which  you  refer  the 
world's  life  and  your  own.  It  is  your  best  comfort  to  do  so 
And  yet  it  is  such  miserable  comfort  that  you  will  be  continu 
ally  seeking  a  refuge  from  it.  The  vision  of  some  present 
helper, — some  one  to  whom  you  can  address  cries  and  litanies 
— rises  up,  whether  your  philosophy  has  taught  you  to  banish 
it  or  not.  To  such  a  one  you  will  give  the  name  of  Father ; 
it  will  seem  the  most  natural  name ;  you  will  feel  that  you 
must  use  it,  or  that  your  words  die  in  the  utterance.  But  that 
name  will  be  associated,  as  it  was  among  old  Polytheists,  with 
thoughts  of  the  clouds  and  the  changes  of  Nature ;  if  your 
heart  insists  upon  more  human  associations,  then  with  the  tur- 
bulence and  irregularity  you  find  in  yourself.  Deal  honestly 
with  your  own  experiences, — it  is  all  I  ask, — and  then  say 
whether  the  old  name,  the  given  name,  is  not  that  which  you 
need,  antl  which  you  are  trying  to  spell  out.  You  are  sure  it 
is  there  :  it  must  be  very  near  to  you.  But  speculation  does 
not  bring  it  nearer.     The  child  must  confess  its  Father,  and 


318  MEDIATORS. 

confess  itself  to  Him;   then  it  knows  whose  Will  rules  it,  and 
with  what  Will  it  has  been  striving. 

All  our  past  inquiries  into  the  superstitions  of  the  Christian 
world  have  brought  us  to  the  same  conclusion.  From  what- 
ever quarter  they  have  proceeded,  their  tendency  has  been  the 
same.  The  notion  of  a  sovereign  Necessity  has  taken  the  pla 
of  a  Will  of  absolute  truth  and  goodness ;  the  notion  of  a  capri- 
cious Power  to  be  made  placable  by  some  agency  of  ours  ! 
superseded  the  belief  in  a  Father,  whose  will  Christ  came  on 
earth  to  manifest  and  to  fulfil.  Each  opinion  gives  birth  to  the 
other  as  a  deliverance  from  it ;  one  is  supposed  to  be  more 
philosophical,  the  other  more  practical,  than  our  Baptismal 
Faith;  that  remains  as  a  refuge  for  those  who  have  found  the 
first  utterly  offensive  to  their  reason,  the  second  subversive  of 
their  morality.  The  more  simply  it  is  proclaimed,  the  1 
pains  we  take  to  sustain  it  by  our  proofs,— the  more  it  will 
commend  itself  to  the  hearts  that  are  needing  it.  If  we  sub- 
stitute for  a  belief  in  a  Father  a  belief  in  a  notion  of  ours 
about  a  Father,  we  shall  turn  a  confession  which  should  be  the 
greatest  witness  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  has  been  opened 
to  all,  into  a  means  of  excluding  our  brethren  as  well  as  our- 

.  es  from  it. 

II.  There  can  be  no  Mediator  betwreen  a  man  and  a  mere 
Pate  or  Necessity.  A  multitude  of  mediators  will  be  conceived 
between  a  man  and  the  capricious  Power  who  seems  to  be 
dealing  with  him  at  his  pleasure.  These  Mediators  will  be  all, 
more  or  less  distinctly,  felt  to  be  the  helpers  of  the  creatures 

■linst  their  Creator;  they  may  be  regarded  as  having  some 
natural  relationship  to  him,  or  as  having  by  some  merit 
obtained  an  influence  or  a  right  over  him ;  but  they  will  be 
always  the  benignant  patrons  of  those  whom  he  is  disposed,  for 
some  reason,  to  injure.  When  the  word  "  Father"  has  taken  any 
strong  hold  of  a  man  any  where,  when  it  has  displaced  the 
notion  of  a  mere  sovereign,  there  will  be  a  counteraction  to 


THE  LIVING  WORD  ,    THE   SON.  319 

this  feeling.  Those  who  plead  for  man  with  Him,  must  "be 
felt  in  some  sense  to  express  His  mind  ;  they  will  be  acknow- 
ledged as  His  sons.  But  this  counter  action,  though  great,  will 
be  inadequate  till  we  have  learnt  the  lesson  of.  which  I  was 
speaking  just  now, — the  lesson  that  the  Will  of  this  Father  is 
as  steadfast  as  any  Fate  can  be ;  that  its  steadfastness  con- 
sists in  its  righteousness  ;  that  there  cannot  be  variableness  in  it 
because  it  is  good,  and  can  only  seek  to  do  good.  This  Will  de- 
mands that  which  the  Necessity  excludes.  It  must  speak,  it 
must  utter  itself.  A  Will  cannot  be  without  a  Word.  A  Will 
that  is,  and  lives,  must  utter  itself  by  a  living  Word.  This  is 
what  St.  John,  in  his  divine  theology,  declares  to  us.  But  if  he 
speaks  in  one  sentence  of  a  Word,  he  speaks  in  the  next  of  a  Son. 
The  names  are  used  interchangeably ;  but  we  should,  I  believe, 
lose  more  than  we  know,  if  either  had  been  used  exclusively. 
Experience  has  shown  that  those  who  determinately  prefer  the 
first,  soon  fall  into  that  notion  of  a  mere  emanation  from  some 
mysterious  abyss  of  Divinity,  which  haunted  the  oriental  mys- 
tics and  the  early  heretics,  or  else  into  the  notion  of  a  mere  prin- 
ciple indwelling  in  man.  The  Word  becomes  impersonal :  the 
Will  becomes  impersonal :  very  soon  the  man  forgets  that  he 
is  a  person  himself,  and  becomes  a  mere  dreamer  or  specula- 
tor. The  blessed  name  of  Son,  which  connects  itself  with  all 
human  sympathies  and  relationships,  is  the  deliverance  from 
this  phantom  region.  While  we  cleave  to  it,  we  can  never 
forget  that  only  a  Person  can  express  the  Will  of  the  Absolute 
Being  ;  that  only  in  a  Person  He  can  see  His  own  image.  But 
the  Son  of  God  will  soon  be  merged  for  us  in  the  Son  of  Man, 
— we  shall  refer  His  relationship  to  ours,  not  ours  to  His, — if 
we  do  not  recur  to  that  other  name,  if  we  do  not,  by  medita- 
ting upon  it,  save  ourselves  from  the  unspeakable  dangers  into 
which  those  fall  who  think  of  the  Son  only  as  their  Saviour, 
and  not  as  the  brightness  of  His  Father's  glory.  Both  these 
perils  are  besetting  us  now  as  much  as  they  beset  any  former 


320  THE  ABSTRACT  AND  POPULAR  TENDENCIES. 

age.  I  think  they  are  besetting  us  more  ;  often  when  we  are 
not  conscious  of  either  as  a  theological  tendency,  it  is  affecting 
our  moral  and  social  feelings,  and  our  ordinary  acts,  in  innu- 
merable ways. 

There  is  an  abstract  way  of  thinking  about  the  Son  of  God 
which  is  hurrying  some  of  us  into  Pantheism,  and  multitudes 
partake  of  the  effect  who  are  not  in  the  least  alive  to  the  cause. 
There  is  a  popular  way  of  thinking  about  the  Son  of  God, 
which  is  hurrying  us  into  idolatry ;  and  parents  are  startled 
at  seeing  their  children  fall  over  a  precipice,  to  the  edge  of 
which  they  have  walked  under  their  guidance.  Nor  do  I  see 
how  either  evil  can  be  averted  if  we  do  not  more  earnestly 
consider  what  is  involved  in  the  faith  of  little  children  ;  whe- 
ther the  name  of  the  Son  into  which  we  are  baptized  is  notour 
redemption  from  all  vagueness,  and  from  all  partial,  separate, 
self-seeking  worship,  a  witness  that  we  are  adopted  into  Him 
as  members  of  His  body,  and  must  therefore  seek  the  things 
that  are  above,  where  lie  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 
This  faith  is  not  notional,  but  practical ;  not  for  this  and  that 
man,  but  for  mankind.  If  we  were  forced  to  form  conceptions 
about  a  Son  of  God,  or  Son  of  Man,  there  would  be  a  perpe- 
tual strife  of  intellects;  there  could  be  no  consent;  each  man 
must  think  differently  from  his  neighbor,  must  try  to  establish 
his  own  thought  against  his  neighbor's.  If  He  is  revealed  to 
us  as  the  ground  of  our  intellects, — the  creative  Word  of  God 
from  whom  they  derive  their  light :  as  the  centre  of  our  fel- 
lowship, the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  in  whom  we  are  made 
sons  of  God ;  the  weary  effort  is  over ;  our  thoughts  may  tra- 
vel to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  but  here  is  their  home;  apart 
from  Him  men  have  infinite  disagreements ;  in  Him  they 
have  peace. 

III.  A  mere  Fate  or  Necessity  of  course  communicates  no 
life  or  energy  to  those  who  are  the  subjects  of  it.  Life  and 
energy  are  excluded  from  the  very  idea  of  Necessity.     A  Ru- 


THE  DIVINE  ESSENCE.  321 

ler  or  Lord  of  Nature  may  impart  powers  or  energies  to  par- 
ticular men.  It  will  be  the  great  sign  of  his  favoring  them, 
above  others,  that  he  does  so.  A  free  and  imaginative  people 
like  the  Greeks  would  account  it  a  much  greater  proof  of  a 
man's  being  dear  to  the  Gods,  that  he  was  able  to  perform 
rare  achievements,  and  exhibit  unusual  wit  and  prowess,  than 
that  he  possessed  houses  and  land,  and  an  outward  good  for- 
tune. High  gifts  were  felt,  as  I  showed  before,  to  indicate  an 
Inspirer,  and  that  Inspirer  was  acknowledged  to  have  descend- 
ed from  the  highest  God.  Here,  again,  the  name  of  Father 
greatly  modified  the  previous  belief.  The  gift  of  Inspiration 
was  generally  taken  as  an  evidence  that  the  man  who  received 
it  stood  in  some  real  relation  to  the  Divine  Power ;  it  was  not 
merely  bestowed  from  choice  or  favoritism,  it  was  a  kind  of 
inheritance. 

The  moment  a  Will  drives  out  a  Fate,  an  absolute  will  to 
good,  mere  irresistible  decrees,  the  belief  that  this  Will  must 
seek  to  make  other  wills  like  its  own,  forces  itself  upon  us. 
"  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your  sanctification,"  becomes 
the  deepest  conviction  of  the  reason. 

At  first  these  words  may  be  reflected  on  with  much  inward 
satisfaction,  without  any  great  awe.  \  But  when  a  man  remem- 
bers that  holiness,  in  its  fullest  sense,  holiness  as  involving 
truth  and  love  by  involving  separation  from  what  is  false  and 
unlovely,  must  be  the  innermost  nature  of  God,  he  may  well 
wonder  and  tremble  while  he  hears  that  of  this,  it  is  the  will 
of  God  to  make  him  partaker.  This  gift  is  so  amazing,  so 
essential,  that  he  is  utterly  baffled  when  he  tries  to  meditate 
how  he  can  ever  be  possessed  of  it.  Can  he  become  a  God  ? 
While  he  dreamed  of  God  as  a  being  of  mere  power,  he  might 
dream  also  of  measuring  his  own  power  with  His.  But  as 
soon  as  the  belief  of  God's  holiness  has  at  all  entered  into  him, 
his  desire  is  to  sink  rather  than  to  rise.  The  consciousness  of 
his  pride  is  that  which  alarms  him  most.      And  that  pride 

14* 


322  LOVE    MUST  HAVE  AN  OBJECT. 

haunts  him  perpetually.  If  he  became  the  most  abject  of  men, 
he  feels  as  if  he  should  be  proud  of  that  abjectness, — more 
proud  than  he  had  ever  been  before.  This  is  a  perplexity 
concerning  himself:  there  is  another  concerning  God.  It  is 
wonderful  that  the  inmost  life  of  God  should  be  communica- 
ted ;  but  it  would  be  a  contradiction  that  it  should  not  be 
communicated.  We  cannot  think  of  a  Being  of  perfect  love 
us  wrapt  up  in  Himself,  as  dwelling  in  the  contemplation  of 
His  own  excellence  and  perfection  ;  we  can  as  little  think  of 
His  being  satisfied  with  any  lower  excellence  or  perfection. 
The  belief  of  a  Spirit  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
meets  both  the  human  and  the  divine  difficulty.  To  think  of  the 
Father  resting  in  the  Son,  in  the  (hep'  ;se  knowing  the  Son, 

and  of  the  Son  knowing  the  Father,  we  must  think  of  a  uniting 
Spirit.  And  if  there  is  Bach  B  Spirit,  it  must  be  capable  of 
being  imparted:  that  must  be  the  way  in  which  holiness  is 
imparted.  And  if  this  gift  comes  to  men  through  the  Son,  we 
are  sure  that  the  Spirit  which  they  receive  must  be  the  Spirit 
of  lowliness,  and  meekness,  and  obedience.  We  are  sure  that 
it  cannot  be  a  Spirit  which  exalts  any  one  man  above  his  fel- 
low, it  must  bring  all  to  a  level.  In  so  far  as  they  confess  it 
to  be  the  Spirit  of  a  Father,  they  must  confess  that  it  is  meant 
to  make  them  Sons  of  God ;  in  so  far  as  they  confess  that  it 
the  Spirit  of  Christ,  they  confess  that  it  is  meant  to  make  them 
brothers.  But  the  more  this  Spirit  quickens  thern,  the  more 
they  will  delight  to  own  it  as  distinct  from  them;  the  more  our 
Lord's  words  respecting  a  Comforter  will  seem  to  them  the 
truest  and  fullest  of  all ;  the  more  they  will  be  compelled  to 
feel  that  there  is  is  a  Divine  Person  with  them  to  whom  they 
owe  reverence  and  worship. 

St>  wonderfully, — if  our  baptismal  faith  is  true, — are  Divin- 

and  Humanity  blended;  so  awfully  are  they  distinguished. 

Each  step  in  the  revelation  of  the  distinct  Persons  comes  out 


UNITY.  323 

to  meet  and  satisfy  some  infinite  need  of  man ;  some  witness 
which  has  been  awakened  within  him  of  his  own  grandeur,  and 
of  his  own  weakness;  of  his  belonging  to  a  society,  and  of  his 
being  an  individual ;  of  his  dwelling  in  a  world,  subject  to  ail 
the  accidents  of  time ;  of  his  right  to  a  state  that  is  free  from 
these  accidents.  The  more  near  he  is  brought  to  God,  the 
greater  he  feels  is  the  necessity  for  adoration  and  worship, — 
while  he  contemplates  Him  at  a  distance  there  is  terror,  but 
not  reverence  or  awe. 

And  it  is  equally  true  that  while  he  beholds  him  at  a  dis- 
tance from  himself,  as  the  heathen  did,  and  as  we  are  always 
prone  to  do,  there  can  be  no  acknowledgment  of  His  Unity. 
As  long  as  a  Jove,  or  some  Lord  of  Nature  is  worshipped,  he 
must  be  divided  into  a  multitude  of  forms.  The  conception 
of  such  a  being  shows  what  a  need  the  heart  and  reason  have 
of  Unity,  but  also  how  impossible  it  is  for  them  to  find  it,  or 
create  it  for  themselves.  The  multitude  of  forms  which  we 
behold  in  the  world  will  make,  in  spite  of  all  reasonings  and 
theories,  a  multitude  of  world-gods  ;  it  is  only  when  we  ask  in 
wonder  whence  we  ourselves  are  ;  to  what  law  we  are  subject ; 
in  whom  it  is  that  wTe  are  living,  and  moving,  and  having  our 
being;  who  is  guiding  us;  whither  he  would  lead  us ;  that  we 
begin  to  escape  from  darkness  into  light,  from  division  into 
Unity.  When  the  Gospel  was  preached,  when  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  wTas  uttered,  when  men 
had  been  baptized  into  it,  idols  fell  down  ;  the  worship  of  the 
visible  became  intolerable  ;  the  sense  of  Unity  profound.  The 
separation  of  that  name  has  been  in  all  ages  since,  the  secret 
of  division,  the  commencement  of  idolatry.  If  we  watched  our 
own  minds  more  we  should  find  that  it  is  so  with  them.  We 
have  sometimes  fancied  wre  could  dwell  simply  on  the  thought 
of  a  Father ,  all  others  should  be  discarded  as  unnecessary. 
But  soon  it  has  not  been  a  Father  we  have  contemplated,  it 


324  ETERNAL  LIFE. 

has  been  a  mere  substratum  of  the  things  we  saw,  a  name  un- 
der which  we  collected  them.     How  rejoiced  is  the  heart  to 
pass  from  such  a  cold  void  to  the  thought  of  a  Son  filled  with 
all  human  sympathies  !     But  how  soon  does  the  sin  sick  soul 
frame  a  thousand  images  and  pictures  of  its  own  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  perfect  Image;  dream  of  Mediators  closer  and 
more  gracious  than  the  One  who  died  for  all !     What  a  relief 
to  fly  from  these  fancies  to  a  Divine  Spirit !     How  we  wonder 
that  we  should  ever  have  thought  that  God  could  be  anywhere 
but  in  the  contrite  heart  and  pure  !     Alas,  the  heart  does  not 
long  remain  contrite  and  pure!     Its  holiness  disappears  ;  then 
the  Object  of  its  worship  disappears, — for  that  Object  was  be- 
coming more  and  more  itself.     And  the  man  either  is  content 
with  that  miserable  condition,  and  amuses   himself  witli   high 
phrases  about  humanity  to  hide   the  facts  of  it  from  his  own 
conscience;  or  he  asks   lor  some  mortal  .1  him  what  he 

should  believe,  because  lie  di  rs  that  he  has  come  to  believe 

nothing. 

He  will  find  mauy  ready  to  meet  that  craving.  He  will  bear 
voices  saying  to  him,  "  To  what  a  condition  you  have  reduced 
yourself  by  forsaking  the  one  safe  guide,  the  only  teacher  who 
can  enable  you  to  obtain  Eternal  Life !  For  does  not  Christ 
say  that  we  can  only  obtain  eternal  life  by  knowing  God  and 
1 1  i 1 1 1  ?  And  what  knowledge,  what  certainty,  have  you  on 
these  subjects?  How  can  you  get  that  certainty  unless  there 
is  an  infallible  guide  who  will  say  to  you,  This  is  true,  believe 
it?"  What  a  powerful,  almost  irresistible,  argument  to  one 
who  fancied  that  he  believed  everything,  and  is  beginning  to 
find  that  he  scarcely  believes  in  a  God!  And  if  the  new  teacher 
could  restore  him  that  belief,  what  else  does  he  want,  what 
might  he  not  sacrifice  for  such  a  gift  ?  But  can  that  be,  when 
he  begins  with  assuming  our  Lord  to  have  uttered  words  which 
He  never  did  utter,  and  which  directly  set  at  nought  His 
actual  words  ?     He  did  not  say,  "  Men  obtain  eternal  life  by 


ETERNITY  AND  TIME  DISTINCT.  325 

knowing  God;"  but,  "  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  may  know 
Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  has  sent?1 
The  knowledge  does  not  procure  the  life,  but  the  knowlege 
constitutes  the  life. 

We  fancy  we  attach  a  distinct  meaning  to  these  words,  Eter- 
nal Life;  they  are  such  precious  words,  that  every  one  tries  to 
form  some  notion  of  them.  But  surely  if  there  is  any  subject 
on  which  we  want  a  guide,  an  infallible  guide,  it  is  on  this. 
We  feel  that  we  are  under  a  law  of  change  and  succession,  that 
we  live  in  days,  and  months,  and  years.  We  feel  also  that  we 
have  to  do  with  that  which  is  not  changeable,  which  cannot  be 
represented  by  any  divisions  of  time.  A  long  life,  the  poet 
says,  may  be  curdled  into  an  hour.  Every  great  and  serious 
event  of  our  lives  has  taught  us  that  this  is  so.  We  experi- 
ence the  utter  vanity  and  emptiness  of  chronology  as  a  mea- 
sure of  suffering,  of  thought,  of  hope,  of  love.  All  these  be- 
long to  another  state  of  things.  We  perceive  that  Scripture 
is  speaking  to  us  of  that  state  of  things ;  that  it  is  educat- 
ing us  into  the  apprehension  of  it.  The  more  we  attend  to  the 
New  Testament,  the  more  we  find  to  confirm  the  witness  of  our 
reason,  that  eternity  is  not  a  lengthening  out  or  continuation 
of  time  ;  that  they  are  generically  different ;  as  St.  Paul  so 
beautifully  expresses  it,  "  that  ivhich  ive  see  is  temporal ;  that 
which  we  do  not  see  is  eternal.'1''  The  spiritual  world, — we  are 
obliged  to  confess  it  in  a  thousand  ways, — is  not  subject  to  tem- 
poral conditions.  This  is  no  discovery  of  philosophers.  Every 
peasant  knows  it  as  well  as  Newton.  If  you  have  listened 
with  earnestness  to  the  questions  of  a  child,  you  may  often 
think  that  it  knows  more  of  eternity  than  of  time.  The  suc- 
cession of  years  confounds  it ;  it  mixes  the  dates  which  it  has 
been  instructed  in  most  strangely ;  but  its  intuition  of  some- 
thing which  is  beyond  all  dates  makes  you  marvel.  Scripture, 
in  like  manner,  illustrates  and  makes  clear  our  own  thoughts 
about  Life  and  Death.     It  teaches  us  to  think  that  the  healthy 


326  "  THIS  IS  LIFE  ETERNAL." 

activity  of  all  our  powers  and  perceptions,  and  their  direction 
to  their  right  object,  is  the  living  state  ;  that  the  torpor  of  these, 
or  their  concentration  on  themselves,  is  a  state  of  Death. 

With  these  hints,  which  every  day's  reading  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, by  an  earnest  student,  will  multiply  and  expand,  what 
need  we  have  of  some  direct  words  to  bring  together  the  two 
thoughts  of  Eternity  and  of  Life.  If  I  spoke  of  defining  Eter- 
nal Life,  I  should  feel,  and  I  think  all  would  feel,  that  I  was 
using  an  improper  word;  for  how  can  we  define  that  which  is 
out  of  the  limits  of  time  ?  But  in  the  depth  of  prayer  and 
communion  with  His  Father,  our  Lord  gives  us  that  which 
corresponds  to  the  most  accurate  and  divine  definition,  an 
exposition  which  we  are  bound  henceforth,  if  we  reverence  His 
authority,  to  apply  on  all  o<  us,  and  to  use  as  the  correc- 

tion of  our  loose  and  vague  conceptions.  Instead  of  picturing 
to  ourselves  some  future  bliss,  calling  that  eternal  life,  and 
determining  the  worth  of  it  by  a  number  of  years,   or  centu- 

-,  or  millenniums,  we  are  bound  to  say  once  for  all :  "This 
is  the  eternal  life,  that  which  Christ  has  brought  with  Him, 
that  which  we  have  in  Him,  the  knowledge  of  God  ;  the  enter- 
ing into  His  mind  and  character,  the  knowing  him  as  we  only 
can  know  any  person,  by  sympathy,  fellowship,  love."  And 
so  the  meaning  and  order  of  the  Divine  revelation  become  evi- 
dent to  us;  God  has  been  declaring  Himself  to  us,  that  we 
might  know  Him,  because  He  would  have  us  partakers  of  this 

irnal  life.  And  the  final  Revelation,  that  which  is  expressed 
in  our  Baptismal  name,  tells  us  what  all  the  experience  of  our- 
selves and  of  the  world  tells  us  also,  that  unless  the  Spirit  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son  were  with  us,  we  could  not  break  loose 
from  the  fetters  of  Time,  the  confusions  of  Sense,  the  narrowness 
of  Selfishness ;  that  if  we  yield  to  that  Spirit  we  can  have  fel- 
lowship with  those  who  are  nigh  and  those  who  are  far  off; 
with  men  of  every  habit,  color,  opinion  ;  with  those  whom  the 
veil  of  flesh   divides  from  us;  with  Him  who  is  the  Perfect 


ROMANIST  PERVERSION.  327 

Charity ;  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  who  dwell  in  the  Unity 
of  one  blessed  and  eternal  Spirit. 


Many  Unitarians  still  think  as  their  fathers  did,  that  the 
idea  of  a  Trinity  involves  an  utter  contradiction, — that  every 
rational  man  must  reject  it.  Many  of  them  are  aware  that 
some  of  the  deepest  minds  in  the  world  have  felt  that  the 
acknowledgment  of  a  Trinity  was  necessary  to  their  reason. 
But  they  are  careful  to  observe  that  this  is  not  the  Trinity  of 
which  we  speak;  if  they  should  ever  come  to  accept  a  Trinity 
as  a  portion  of  their  belief  they  would  still,  they  say,  not  be 
stooping  to  a  creed.  That  act  would  be  a  sign  of  Progress, 
not  of  retrogression  ;  they  would  welcome  a  discovery  of  phi- 
losophy, not  surrender  themselves  to  a  religious  tradition. 

Such  language  is  lofty ;  I  would  beseech  every  earnest  Unita- 
rian to  consider  whether  it  is  wise.  Does  he  mean  by  a  discovery 
of  philosophy,  the  discovery  of  a  verbal  formula  ?  If  he  does, 
I  must  leave  him  to  any  advantage  he  may  get  from  it,  only 
reminding  him  that  he  has  now  become  the  worshipper  of  for- 
mulas; that  he  cannot  henceforth  cast  that  charge  upon  us. 
But  if  it  is  a  truth  he  discovers,  may  it  not  be  a  truth  for  man- 
kind ?  And  may  not  a  living  and  true  God  have  taken  some 
way  of  making  that  truth  known  to  the  creatures  whom  He 
has  made  capable  of  knowing  it  ?  When  we  speak  of  a  Creed 
which  may  be  taught  and  believed,  we  say  that  He  has  done 
this.  We  say  that  in  Christ  the  Trinity  is  revealed  substan- 
tially. It  is  not  a  doctrine,  unless  it  is  more  than  a  doctrine. 
Either  real  Persons  are  declared  to  us,  or  nothing  is  declared 
about  those  Persons.  Either  a  real  unity  is  declared,  or 
nothing  is  made  known  to  us  about  a  Unity.  Supposing  philo- 
sophy to  have  perceived  a  Trinity,  or  the  shadow,  or  the  hint 
of  one,  it  cannot  appropriate  this  perception  to  itself, — any 


328  THE  ROAD  TO  TRUTH. 

more  than  Gravitation  is  a  truth  which  Newton  could  appro- 
priate to  himself.  The  philosopher  must  ask  to  what  reality 
the  perception  or  intuition  corresponds  ;  of  what  substance 
that  which  he  sees  is  the  shadow.  No  one  is  bound  to  assume 
the  position  of  a  philosopher  ;  few  have  any  call  to  assume  it ; 
but  supposing  a  man  becomes  one,  this  must  be  the  condition  of 
his  work  : — he  must  seek  fur  that  which  is  human  and  universal ; 
for  Truth  itself,  not  for  some  image  of  it  or  some  logical  expres- 
sion of  it.  And  he  must  ask  how  truth  in  this  sense, — truth  as 
the  equivalent  of  substance  or  being, — can  be  made  known,  so 
that  all  shall  be  partakers  of  it.  I  leave  that  thought  to  tho 
modern  Unitarian  philosopher.  I  would  not  have  him  aban- 
don his  task,  if  he  thinks  that  he  is  appointed  to  it.  I  would 
have  him  pursue  it  steadily.  For  I  believe  he  will  find  that  the 
philosopher  must  ascend  to  knowledge  by  the  same  steps  as  the 
man  ;  that  if  he  is  to  find  truth,  God  must  reveal  Himself 
to  him. 

The  last  words  suggest  a  subject  upon  which  I  should  like 
to  say  a  few  words.  I  have  used  the  phrase  that  a  belief  in  the 
Trinity  makes  "  Prayer  possible."  Do  I  mean  that  it  is  imjios- 
sih/e  to  every  person  who  has  not  received  our  Creed, — that 
the  Unitarian  cannot  pray  ?  I  mean  no  such  thing.  My  great 
ire  has  been  to  show  that  we  are  dwelling  in  a  Mystery 
deeper  than  any  of  our  plummets  can  fathom,  a  Mystery  of 
Love.  Our  prayers  are  not  measured  by  our  conceptions;  they 
do  not  spring  from  us.  lie  who  knows  us,  teaches  us  what  we 
should  pray  for,  and  how  to  pray.  Therefore,  of  all 
transgressors  of  our  Lord's  command  "  not  to  judge,"  they 
are  greatest  who  pretend  to  pronounce  upon  the  depth  or  sin- 
cerity of  their  neighbor's  prayer,  who  think  they  can  ascertain 
it  by  the  professions  which  he  makes,  by  his  apparent  pride  or 
humility. 

But   the   more  I  have   seen  of  Unitarians,  or  have  read  of 
their  books,  the  more  have  I  been  convinced  that  this  was  the 


PRAYER.  329 

great  difficulty  of  their  Creed — that  in  which  its  other  difficul- 
ties begin  and  terminate.  "  Is  God's  Will  good, — then 
why  attempt  to  move  it  by  petitions  and  intercessions  ?  Is  it 
not  good  ?  then  how  hopeless  the  effort  must  be,  seeing  that  He 
is  omnipotent  !"  These  logical  icebergs  continually  move 
away  for  human  sufferers  who  are  trying  to  force  a  passage 
between  them.  They  pray  because  they  cannot  help  it.  Whe- 
ther the  effort  is  a  reasonable  one  or  not,  they  must  make  it. 
When  the  necessity  has  passed  away,  the  understanding  finds 
a  justification  for  the  violence  which  has  been  put  upon  it,  and 
for  the  habitual  repetition  of  such  violence,  by  saying  that  though 
our  prayers  cannot  move  God,  they  are  useful  for  their  action 
upon  our  minds.  But  conscience  then  comes  in  with  its  pro- 
test :  "  What,  practise  a  pious  fraud  in  order  to  effect  an  im- 
provement in  your  moral  condition !  Pretend  that  you  are 
praying  to  some  Being  beyond  yourself,  when  you  are,  in  fact, 
your  own  object !  What  charms,  what  Buddhist  praying- 
machine  can  be  more  insincere  than  such  a  process  ?  Can  the 
adoption  of  it  make  us  more  serious  and  truthful  ?  If 
not,  what  is  that  reaction  upon  our  own  characters  which  is 
urged  as  a  defence  of  it  ? 

I  do  not  think  the  Unitarian  has  ever  been  able  to  answer 
these  objections,  and  yet  I  am  nearly  sure  that  many  Unita- 
rians would  sooner  die  than  give  up  the  act  of  prayer,  and  that 
they  believe  it  not  to  be  the  falsest,  but  the  truest  of  all  acts, 
that  wilich  is  necessary  to  make  them  sincere,  and  keep  them 
sincere.  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  greater  part  of  Unitarians, 
even  those  who  retain  Dr.  Priestly's  dogma  of  Necessity 
in  their  speculative  creed,  contrive  to  separate  the  idea  of  Him 
they  call  Father,  from  that  Necessity.  They  confess  a  Will  ; 
they  do  not  worship  a  mere  God  of  Nature.  And  they  can 
believe  that  this  Will  may  govern  them,  in  some  different  way 
from  that  in  which  He  governs  the  trees,  and  flowers,  and 
streams.  This  belief  implies  the  possibility  of  some  intercourse  ; 


330  HOW  IT  IS  SOMETIMES  DEFENDED. 

yes !  they  must  use  that  name,  however  much  it  savors  of 
what  they  have  been  wont  to  call  fanaticism ;  no  other  will 
avail.  But  again  the  doubt  occurs.  "  How  can  this  inter- 
course take  place  ?  Am  I  sure  that  I  have  any  relation  to  this 
mysterious  Will  ?     Are  the  words  '  speech  and  hearing'  appli 

ble  to  this  subject?"     Consider  these  questions  in  all  wi 
You  are  afraid  of  traditions.    I  do  not  ask  you  to  receive  mine 
You  long  to  be  rational.     Use  your  reason  upon  this  subject 
And  see  whether  the  doctrine  of  a  Mediator,  one  with  the  Fa 
ther,   one   with  you,  does   not   meet   it, — whether  anything 
else  can. 

But  think  again  ;  some  anguish  drove  you  to  prayer.  I  do 
not  ask  what  it  was.  It  might  be  the  loss  of  reputation ;  it 
might  be  the  loss  of  a  friend  or  child.  Whatever  it  was,  I  am 
certain  a  sense  of  wrong,  of  remorse,  of  repentance,  mingled 
with  your  sorrow  :  you  had  been  hardly  treated,  but  you  were 
not  quite  blameless ;  the  friend  was  very  dear,  but  you  might 
have  done  more  for  him.  Thai  misery  drove  you  to  God ;  but 
did  it  not  also  keep  you  from  Him?  There  wras  a  feeling  of 
separation,  not  merely  from  the  human  being  that  was  gone, 
I3ut  from  Hin).  Was  it  overcome?  I  do  not  say  that  it  was 
not,  for  I  believe  that  God  has  given  the  Son  in  whom  He  sees 
us,  and  in  whom  we  may  see  Him,  to  be  a  ransom,  for  all,  to  be 

tified  in  due  time. 

But  if  you  acknowledged  that  ransom, — if  you  accepted 
Christ's  Sacrifice,  as  the  assurance  of  His  reconciliation  with 
you, — would  not  that  explain  the  sense  of  strife  ;  the  union 
which  is  mightier  than  it ;  the  possibility,  the  infinite  truth 
of  prayer?  And  will  not  the  thought,  "Such  an  one  is  ever 
presenting  His  Sacrifice  not  for  me,  but  for  the  whole  family  ; 
it  is  binding  me  to  men  as  well  as  to  God," — put  an  end  to 
the  struggle  and  selfishness  of  your  prayers  in  time  to  come 
— without  making  them   less  earnest,  less  individual  ?     For 


A  SPIRIT  OF  GOOD.  331 

you  must  know,  then,  that  you  are  not  striving  to  get  some- 
thing which  God  is  unwilling  to  give — that  you  are  crying  out 
for  the  victory  of  His  "Will  over  your  own  and  over  all  others. 
And  if  you  believe  this  Will  is  that  all  should  be  saved,  and 
should  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  that  Christ 
has  fulfilled  this  Will  on  earth,  and  is  fulfilling  it  now,  is  it  not 
an  infinite  comfort  that  your  wishes  are  but  the  feeble  echoes 
of  His  ? 

Yet  there  is  something  more  wanted  still  to  make  your 
prayers  real,  and  to  explain  that  "  reaction  on  your  own  minds" 
which  you  have  talked  of.  Are  not  you  conscious  very  often 
of  utter  powerlessness,  of  a  mind  anything  but  disposed  to 
good,  anything  but  disposed  to  love  or  aid  your  fellow-men  as 
you  think  God  is  loving  and  aiding  them  ?  Would  it  not  be  a 
satisfaction, — not  to  your  feelings  only,  but  to  your  sincerity, — 
to  believe  that  there  is  a  Spirit  who  is  urging  us  to  those  higher 
impulses  to  which  we  are  so  indisposed,  who  is  lifting  us  above 
ourselves,  who  is  drawing  us  to  the  Father  of  our  Spirits  ?  I 
ask  you  to  ponder  these  thoughts.  If  you  entered  into  them, 
you  would  not  at  all  be  adopting  the  doctrines  of  this  book. 
You  might  be  leaving  them  and  me,  far  behind  you.  You 
might  be  entering  into  a  knowledge  of  God  which  I  have  never 
attained;  might  be  contemplating  Christ's  sacrifice  as  I  have 
been  unable  to  contemplate  it ;  might  be  seeing  the  future  con- 
dition of  the  world  and  God's  judgment  of  it  under  aspects 
altogether  different  from  mine.  But  you  would  be  realizing  all 
that  I  desire  for  myself,  for  you,  for  my  brethren,  because  you 
would  be  committing  us  and  yourselves  to  God. 

I  should,  indeed,  be  contradicting  all  I  have  said  hitherto, 
and  the  deepest  testimony  of  my  soul,  if  I  persuaded  any  Uni- 
tarian to  pray  as  if  that  was  true  which  as  yet  he  does  not 
believe  to  be  true.  Let  him  cling  to  his  belief  in  a  One  God ; 
let  him  hold  fast  to  the  name  of  Father.  I  do  not  dread  his 
zeal,  but  his  indifference ;  not  his  grasp  of  his  own  convictions, 


332  PRAYER  TO  THE  FATHER. 

but  his  inclination  to  use  them  as  weapons  against  other  men. 
While  we  Use  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  that  way,  I  am 
certain  we  shall  not  believe  it,  whatever  we  may  pretend. 
While  they  think  they  know  what  that  awful  name  "  Father  " 
means,  because  they  can  pronounce  it,  or  what  that  wonderful 
word  "  Unity"  means,  because  they  can  fight  for  it,  they  will 
not  only  not  enlarge  the  circle  of  their  convictions,  but  they 
will  lose  those  that  they  have.  Let  them  pray  the  Lord's 
prayer,  determining  that  the  first  words  of  it  shall  not  be  mere 
words  to  them, — that  they  shall  be  such  as  sick  people  want 
who  sigh  for  the  morning ;  as  poor  men  want  who  toil  in  mines; 
as  captives  want  who  are  chained  together  in  loathsome 
prisons ;  and  I  have  no  fear  of  their  coming  to  acknowledge 
the  whole  name  which  we  confess.  Let  them  sigh  for  that 
Unity  which  all  the  strifes  and  divisions  of  the  world  are  rend- 
ing, and  I  have  no  doubt  they  will  learn  to  pray  to  as  well  as 
for  a  Spirit  of  Unity,  or  that  their  prayer  will  take  the  form  of 
the  old  hymn  of  which  we  have  this  simple  and  noble  version  • 

Teach  us  to  know  the  Father,  Son, 
And  Thee  of  both,  to  be  but  one  ; 
That  through  the  ages  all  along 
This  may  be  our  endless  song, — 
Praise  to  thy  eternal  merit, 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit. 


Note. — As  the  remark  in  this  passage  on  Romanist  arguers  applies 
directly  to  some  Sermons  of  Mr.  Manning's,  on  John,  c.  17,  v.  3,  I  cannot 
let  it  go  forth  without  saying,  that  I  entirely  acquit  him  of  that  which 
would  be  a  great  sin,  the  intention  of  interpolating  our  Lord's  words.  I 
can  quite  conceive  that  vehement  opponents  of  Rome  have  read  his 
Sermons  without  discovering  that  flaw  in  them.  For  the  truth  is,  that 
we  adopt  this  paraphrase  as  much  as  the  Romanists  do.  Mr.  Manning 
probably  learnt  it  among  English  divines,  and  is  making  fair  use  of  it 
against  them  now.  "What  I  hoped  and  believed  was,  that  he  had  risen 
out  of  such  a  low  notion  of  orthodoxy,  to  whatever  society  it  belongs.  In 


MILTON  ON  TIME.  333 

the  fourth  volume  of  his  Sermons,  published  shortly  before  he  left  the 
English  Church,  there  was  such  a  vein  of  true  Catholicity,  such  an 
assertion  of  the  highest  Theology  as  the  possession  for  all  men,  such  a 
vindication  of  the  truth  that  the  knowledge  of  God  is  Eternal  Life,  as  it 
did  one's  heart  good  to  meet  with  anywhere.  Though  there  were  suffi- 
cient indications  in  that  volume,  that  the  writer  might  not  stay  very 
long  amongst  us,  I  could  not  help  hailing  it  as  a  far  nobler  addition  to 
the  stores  of  English  divinity,  than  those  very  exquisite,  probably  more 
popular,  but  it  seemed  to  me  less  masculine,  discourses  which  Mr.  Man- 
ning had  put  forth  previously.  I  ventured  to  hope, — almost  to  prophecy, 
— that  he  might  only  be  breaking  the  fetters  of  our  Anglican  system, 
and  that  even  the  new  fetters  of  Romanism  would  not  hinder  him  from 
being  Catholic.  Nor  will  I  abandon  that  hope  now.  In  a  still  more 
recent  Sermon  he  has  asserted  the  doctrine  which  I  have  maintained  in 
these  Essays,  that  Love  is  the  groundwork  of  all  Divinity,  with  a 
breadth  and  fullness  which  I  should  rejoice  to  find  in  the  Discourses  of 
those  whom  he  has  forsaken.  I  trust,  that  he  believes  himself,  and  will 
teach  others,  that  the  Spirit  of  Love  is  also  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  and  that 
no  lie  is  of  the  Truth  :  when  he  and  we  are  possessed  by  that  conviction, 
we  cannot  long  be  separate. 

In  illustration  of  what  I  have  said  on  the  generical  distinction  between 
Time  and  Eternity,  I  should  wish  my  readers  to  meditate  these  lines  of 
Milton. 

"  Fly,  envious  Time,  till  thou  run  out  thy  race ; 
Call  on  the  lazy,  leaden-stepping  hours, 
Whose  speed  is  but  the  heavy  plummet's  pace ; 
And  glut  thyself  with  what  thy  womb  devours, 
"Which  is  no  more  than  what  is  false  and  vain, 
And  merely  mortal  dross  : 
So  little  is  our  loss, 
So  little  is  thy  gain. 

For  when,  as  each  thing  bad  thou  hast  intomb'd 
And  last  of  all  thy  greedy  self  consumed, 
Then  long  Eternity  shall  greet  our  bliss 
"With  an  individual  kiss  ; 
And  joy  shall  overtake  us  as  a  flood, 
When  everything  that  is  sincerely  good 
And  perfectly  divine, 
With  Truth,  and  Peace,  and  Love  shall  ever  shine 


334  MILTON  ON  TIME. 

About  the  supreme  throne 

Of  Him  to  whose  happy-making  sight  alone 

When  once  our  heavenly- guided  soul  shall  climb 

Then,  all  this  earthly  grossness  quit, 

Attired  with  stars  we  shall  for  ever  sit 

Triumphing  over  Death,  and  Chance,  and  thee,  O  Time." 


C  ONCLUDING    ESSAY. 


ETERNAL  LIFE  AND  ETERNAL  DEATH. 


Here  I  might  stop  ;  for  the  Trinity  is,  as  I  believe,  the  ground 

on  which  the  Church  stands  and  on  which  Humanity  stands; 

Prayer  and  Sacrifice  are,  I  believe,  the  means  whereby  the 

Trinity  is  made  known  to  us  :  in  the  Trinity  I  find  the  Love 

for  which  I  have  been  seeking:  in  Prayer  and  Sacrifice  I  hold 

that  we  may  become  partakers  of  it.    But  here  I  cannot  stop, 

for  the   Unitarians  and  multitudes  who  are   not  Unitarians, 

declare  that  all  I  have  said  is  futile,  for  that  there  is  another 

doctrine  which  contradicts  the  principle  of  my  whole  book,  and 

yet  which  is  as  much  an  article  of  my  faith  as  the  Trinity 

itself.     "Your  Church,"  they  say,  "  maintains  the  notion  of 

everlasting  punishment  after  death.    Consider  what  is  included 

in  that  notion.  You  cannot  thrust  it  into  a  corner  as  you  might 

naturally  wish  to  do.  You  cannot  mention  it  as  something  by 

the  way.     If  it  is  anything,  it  is  fundamental.      Theologians 

and  popular   preachers   treat   it   as   such.     They  start  from 

it ;  they  put  it  forth   as   the   ground  of  their   exhortations. 

The   world,   according   to    them,    lies    under   a    sentence   of 

(335) 


336  ETERNAL    PUNISHMENT. 

condemnation.  An  immense — an  incalculable — majority  of  all 
that  have  been  born  into  it,  must,  if  their  statements  mean  any- 
thing, if  they  are  not  merely  idle  frivolous  rhetoric,  be  hope- 
lessly doomed.  Their  object  is  to  point  out  how  a  few,  a  very 
few,  may  be  saved  from  the  sentence.  All  their  doctrines 
therefore  have  this  centre.  Let  them  speak  of  Atonement, 
Justification,  Regeneration; — these  are  only  different  names 
to  denote  the  methods  by  which  certain  men  may  have  the 
comfort  of  feeling  that  they  are  not  sharers  in  the  condition  to 
which  God  has  consigned  our  race." 

"  What  is  most  appalling,"  the'  objector  continues,  "  to  a 
person  who  takes  the  words  of  Scripture  literally,  is  that  the 
passages  from  which  the  proofs  of  this  doctrine  are  derived, 
are  found  in  the  New  Testament,  in  the  discourses  of  Christ 
himself.  Dr.  John  Owen  especially  draws  the  attention  of  his 
readers  to  the  fact,  that  here  and  not  in  the  Old  Testament, 
which  is  Bupposed  to  contain  the  severer  and  sterner  religion 
of  the  Law,  the  sentences  concerning  eternal  perdition  occur. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  that  his  observation  is  true,  whatever 
reason  may  be  given  for  it  Our  fathers  used  to  think  that 
they  could  explain  away  such  passages  by  giving  a  different 
force  to  the  word  Eternal,  when  it  is  connected  with  blessed- 
ness, and  when  it  is  connected  with  punishment.  But  such 
philological  tricks  will  not  answer  in  our  day.  "We  feel  the 
necessity  of  giving  up  the  passages,  of  supposing  that  they 
were  not  spoken  by  Him  to  whom  they  are  attributed,  or  that 
He  was  mistaken.  But  you  dare  not  take  that  course." 
"  It  is  a  discouraging  circumstance  also,"  they  say,  "that in 
pect  of  this  tenet,  theology  has  not  gained  by  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  has  lost  considerably.  The  belief  in  hopeless  punish- 
ment belongs,  no  doubt,  as  much  to  Romanism  as  to  Protes- 
tantism. But  how  much  are  its  extreme  horrors  mitigated  by 
the  admission  of  a  Purgatory  for  a  great  multitude  of  human 
souls  !  To  whatever  abuses  that  notion  may  have  been  subjected 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ;    PROTESTANTISM.  337 

by  superstition  or  cupidity,  it  is  surely  milder  and  more  humane 
than  the  decree  which  goes  forth  from  so  many  pulpits  in  our 
land  ;  Under stand ',  sinner s}  whatever  be  your  offences,  whatever 
your  temptations,  the  same  irremediable  anguish  is  prepared  for 
you  all.  Even  in  the  Inferno  of  the  Florentine  poet,  though 
all  hope  was  to  forsake  those  who  entered  it,  what  traces  there 
are  of  recollection  and  affection,  what  hints  of  a  moral  improve- 
ment through  suffering!  With  us,  there  is  only  one  dark 
abyss  of  torment  and  sin  for  all  who,  in  the  course  of  three- 
score years  and  ten,  have  not  been  brought  to  believe  things 
which  they  could  not  believe  or  have  never  learnt,  who  have 
not  abstained  from  acts  which  they  have  been  taught  from 
their  youth  up  to  commit." 

"  Once  more,"  they  proceed,  "  experience,  which  is  said  to 
teach  individuals  a  little — nations  almost  nothing — has  taught 
theologians,  it  seems,  to  be  more  outrageous,  more  contemp- 
tuous to  human  sympathies  and  conscience,  than  they  used  to  be 
when  all  men  bowed  the  neck  to  their  yoke.  This  tenet  must 
be  accepted  with  greater  precision  now  than  in  the  days  gone 
by.  The  Evangelical  Alliance,  longing  to  embrace  all  Pro- 
testant schools  and  parties,  makes  it  one  of  its  nine  articles  of 
faith,  one  of  those  first  principles  which  are  involved  in  the 
very  nature  of  a  comprehensive  Christianity.  It  is  clear,  that 
they  are  not  solitary  in  their  wish  to  give  the  doctrine  of  ever- 
lasting punishment  this  character.  Your  orthodox  English 
Churchmen,  though  they  may  dissent  from  some  of  their  opin- 
ions as  too  wide,  will  join  heart  and  soul  with  them,  whenever 
they  are  narrow  and  exclusive.  They  may  suffer  doubts  and 
modifications  in  some  points ;  on  this,  be  sure,  they  will 
demand  simple  unqualified  acquiescence." 

These  statements  may  be  heard  in  all  circles,  from  young 

and  old,  from  men  and  women,  from  persons  longing  to  believe, 

from  those  who  are  settled  down  into  indifference.     Those  who 

know,  say  that  they  are  producing  infidelity  in  the  highest 

15 


338  CONCESSIONS  TO  THE  OBJECTOR. 

classes; — hard  working  clergymen  in  the  Metropolis  can  bear 
witness  that  they  supply  the  most  staple  arguments  to  those 
who  are  preaching  infidelity  among  the  lowest.  How  impos- 
sible it  is  that  I  can  pass  them  by,  every  one  must  perceive. 
They  affect  not  one,  but  each  of  the  principles  which  I  have 
been  discussing.  If  all  these  assertions  are  true,  all  that  I 
have   written    is  fal  I  am  bound,  therefore,  to  examine 

which  of  them  have  a  foundation  and  which  have  not.  For  no 
one  can  doubt  that  there  is  a  truth  in  some  of  them  which  can- 
not be  gainsaid.  * 

I.  I  admit,  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  that  there  is  very 
much  more  about  Eternity  and  eternal  punishment  in  the  Gos- 
pel than  in  the  Law,  in  the  words  of  Christ  than  in  the  books 
of  Moses  and  the  Prophets.  Let  that  point  be  well  recollected 
and  carefully  reflected  upon,  in  connexion  with  the  opinion 
which  all  in  some  Way  or  other  entertain,  in  some  language  or 
other  exi  that] the  New  Testament  is  more  completely  a 

elation  of  the^Xove^  of  God  than  the  Old  isj  The  two 
assertions  must  be  reconciled.  We  cannot  go  on  repeating 
them  both,  dwelling  upon  them  both,  drawing  arguments  from 
them  both,  while  yet  we  feel  them  to  be  incompatible  or  con- 
tradictory. Let  it  be  further  conceded  at  once,  that  we  can- 
not honestly  get  rid  of  this  contradiction  by  attaching  two  dif- 
ferent meanings  to  the  word  curios  in  different  applications. 
The  subjects  which  it  qualifies  cannot  affect  the  sense  we  put 
upon  it.  If  we  turn  it  the  least  awry  to  meet  our  convenience, 
we  deal  unfaithfully  with  the  book  which  we  profess  to  take 
as  our  guide. 

Starting  from  these  premises,  let  us  consider  why  it  is  that 
the  New  Testament  has  more  to  do  with  Eternity  than  the  Old. 
I  think  no  Christian  will  diifer  very  widely  from  me  when  I 
answer,  "  it  is  because  the  living  and  eternal  God  is  more  fully 
and  perfectly  revealed  in  the  one  than  in  the  other."  In  both 
He  is  discovering  Himself  to  men;  in   both   He  is  piercing 


ETERNITY  IN  REFERENCE  TO  GOD.         339 

through  the  mists  which  conceal  Him  from  them.  But  in  the 
one  He  is  making  Himself  known  chiefly  in  His  relations  to  the 
visible  economy  of  the  world ;  in  the  other  He  is  exhibit- 
ing His  own  inward  nature,  and  is  declaring  Himself  as  He  is 
in  Him  who  is  the  brightness  of  His  glory,  the  express  image 
of  His  person.  Whenever  the  word  Eternal  is  used,  then,  in 
the  New  Testament,  it  ought  first,  by  all  rules  of  reason,  to  be 
considered  in  reference  to  God.  Its  use  when  it  is  applied  to 
Him,  must  determine  all  its  other  uses.  There  must  be  no 
shrinking  from  this  rule,  no  efforts  to  evade  the  force  of  it ;  for 
this  is  what  we  agreed  to  condemn  in  the  Unitarians  and  IJni- 
versalists  of  the  last  age,  that  they  changed  the  force  of  the 
adjective  at  their  pleasure,  so  that.it  might  not  mean  the  same 
in  reference  to  punishment  as  to  life.  How  can  we  carry  out 
this  rule  ?  Shall  we  say  that  Eternal  means,  in  reference  to 
God,  "  without  beoinnino-  or  end  ?"  How  then  can  we  affix 
that  meaning  to  Eternal,  when  we  are  speaking  of  man's  bliss 
or  misery  ?  Is  that  without  beginning  as  well  as  without  end  ? 
"  Oh  no  !  you  must  leave  out  the  beginning.  That  of  course 
has  nothing  to  do  with  this  case."  Who  told  you  so  ?  How 
dare  you  play  thus  fast  and  loose  with  God's  word  ?  How 
dare  you  fix  the  standard  by  which  the  signification  of  a  word 
is  to  be  judged,  and  reject  that  very  standard  a  moment  after  ? 
But  are  there  no  better  reasons  why  we  should  not  affix 
this  meaning,  "without  beginning  and  end,"  to  the  word 
alc*vio$  when  it  is  applied  in  the  New  Testament  to  God  ?  I 
quite  agree  that  such  a  meaning  might  have  seemed  very 
natural  to  an  ordinary  Greek.  The  word  might  have  been 
used  in  that  sense  by  a  classical  author,  or  in  colloquial  lan- 
guage, without  the  least  impropriety.  But  just  the  lesson 
which  God  has  been  teaching  men  by  the  revelation  of  Him- 
self was,  that  mere  negatives  are  utterly  unfit  to  express  His 
being,  His  substance.  Erom  the  very  first,  He  had  taught 
His  chosen  people  to  look  upon  Him  as  the  righteou:  Being, 


A, 

f\i  ,•■■■ 


340  ST.  JOHH'fl  LANGUAGE. 

to  believe  that  all  their  righteousness  was  grounded  on  His. 
He  had  promised  them  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  His 
righteousm  Every  true  Israelite  had  looked  to  this  know- 

ledge as  His  reward,  as  the  deliverance  from  his  enemies,  its 
the  satisfaction  of  his  inmost  longings,  as  the  great  blessing  to 
his  nation  and  to  mankind,  as  well  as  to  himself.  His  Righte- 
ous His  Truth,  His  Love,  the  Jew  came  more  and  more 
to  perceive,  were  the  substantial  and  eternal  things,  by  seeking 
which  he  was  delivered  from  the  worship  of  Gods  of  Time 
and  Sense,  as  well  as  from  the  more  miserable  philosophical 
abstraction  of  a  God  who  is  merely  a  negative  of  time;  with- 
out beginning  and  without  end.  Therefore,  when  the  Son  was 
revealed,  this  is  the  language  in  which  the  beloved  disciple 
speaks,  "  The  life  was  manifested,  and  we  have  seen  it,  and 
declare  unto  you  that  eternal  life  which  was  with  the  Fa- 
ther, and  which  has  been  manifested  unto  us."  This  is  but  a 
icimen  of  his  uniform  languag  ¥es,  and  I  will  be  bold 
that  his  language  interprets  all  the  language  of  the  N 

Testament.  \The  eternal  life  is  the  righteoui  and  truth, 

and  love  of  God  which  are  manifested  in  Christ  Jesus; 
manifested   to    men    that    they    may    be    partakers    of   them, 

L  they  may  have  fellowship  with  the  Father  and  with  the 
Son.  J  This  is  held  out  as  the  eternal  blessedness  of  those  who 
seek  God  and  love  Him.  This  it  is,  of  which  our  Lord  must 
have  spoken  in  His  last  prayer,  if  he  who  reports  that  prayer 
did  not  misinterpret  His  meaning. 

Is  it  inconsistent,  then,  with  the  genera]  object  and  character 
of  the  Xew  Testament,  as  the  manifestation  of  His  love,  that 
Eternity  in  all  its  aspects  should  come  before  us  there  as  it 
does  nowhere  else,  that  there  we  should  be  taught  what  it 
mean-  is  it  inconsistent  with  its  scope  and  object  that  there, 
too,  we  should  be  taught  what  the  horror  and  awfuloess  is,  of 
being  without  this  love,  of  setting  ourselves  in  opposition  to  it? 
Those  who  would  not  own  Christ  in  His  brethren,  who  did 


INFERENCE  AS   TO  PUNISHMENT.  341 

not  visit  Him  when  they  were  sick  and  in  prison,  go  away,  He 
said,  into  eternal  or  everlasting  punishment.  Are  we  affixing 
a  new  meaning  to  these  words,  or  the  very  meaning  which  the 
cqntext  demands,  the  only  meaning  which  is  consistent  with 
the  force  that  is  given  to  the  adjective  by  our  Lord  and  His 
apostles  elsewhere,  if  we  say  that  khe  eternal  punishment  is  the 
punishment  of  being  without  the  knowledge  of  God,  who  is 
love,  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  manifested  it ;  even  as  eter- 
nal life  is  declared  to  be  the  having  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
of  Jesus  Christ  ?  If  it  is  right,  if  it  is  a  duty,  to  say  that  Eter- 
nity in  relation  to  God  has  nothing  to_do  with  time. or  duration, 
are  we  not  bound  to  say  that  also  in  reference  to  life  or  to 
punishment,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  time  or  duration  ? 

II.  What  I  have  said  respecting  the  New  Testament  will 
explain  some  phenomena,  which  have  puzzled  observers,  in  the 
opinions  of  the  early  Church  upon  this  subject.  Uniformity  is 
not  to  be  looked  for.  If  any  one  expects  to  find  that,  he  will 
be  woefully  disappointed.  He  will  probably  discover  in  all  the 
Fathers  a  very  strange,  almost  overwhelming,  feeling  that 
Christ  had  revealed  eternity,  the  eternal  world,  the  eternal 
God,  as  they  had  never  been  revealed  before,  that  a  quite  new 
blessedness  had  been  disclosed  to  men,  that  there  was  a  tre- 
mendous disclosure  of  evil  correspondent  to  that.  But  as  in 
every  case  the  wisest  teachers  of  these  centuries  were  but  try- 
ing to  catch  the  meaning  of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,  some 
seeing  it  on  one  side,  some  on  another; — some  through  the 
refracting  medium  of  a  heathen  education,  some  through  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  some  through  their  own  conflicts  and  the 
conflicts  of  their  time; — so  was  it  here.  One  caught  at  this 
aspect  of  eternity,  one  at  that.  Here  was  an  eloquent  preacher 
who  drew  pictures  of  miseries  to  come,  and  mixed  together 
material  images  with  spiritual  ideas.  There  was  a  Universalist 
who  dwelt  on  the  possibility  of  men  being  restored  after  ages 
of  suffering  to  the  favor  of  God.    There  was  one  who  dreamed 


342  CHRYSOSTOM  ;    THEODORA. 

of  alternations  of  misery  and  blessedness.  There  were  those 
who  learnt  in  the  dreadful  strife  with  Manicheism  the  real  dis- 
tinction of  time  and  eternity,  of  life  and  death.  There  were 
those  who,  troubling  themselves  less  with  questions  respecting 
the  future  state  of  men,  dwelt  on  the  eternity  of  the  Father 
and  the  co-eternity  of  the  Son,  and  showed  how  needful  it  was 
that  no  notions  of  time  or  duration  should  intrude  themseh 
into  such  mysteries.  The  influence  of  these  last  men  upon  the 
Church  was  great ;  so  far  as  fixing  the  language  of  her  formu- 
laries in  questions  respecting  the  distinction  of  temporal  and 
eternal  things,  it  was  paramount.  Even  their  anathemas 
against  opponents,  however  reckh  -  they  pointed  to  a  dis- 

belief which  concerned  the  knowledge  of  God,  kept  up  the 
feeling  in  the  Church  that  that  knowledge  constitutes  Eternal 
Life,  and  that  the  loss  of  it  is  Eternal  Death.  But  the  prac- 
tical teachers  naturally  gave  the  form  to  the  popular  divinity. 
It  is  only  wonderful  that  that  divinity  should  have  preserved 
so  Spiritual  a  tone  as  it  did;  that  a  preacher  like  Chr  >m, 

for  instance,  >hould  have  spoken  of  the  second  death  as  the 
death  of  Sin,  the  loss  of  the  moral  being,  when  he  must  have 
been  continually  tempted  to  think  that  the  coarse  reprobates  of 
Antioch  and  Constantinople  needed  only,  and  could  only  under- 
stand, threats  of  material  brimstone.  But  God  did  not  Buffer 
the  champion  whom  He  had  educated  to  be  the  oppoeer  of 
courts  and  empresses,  habitually  to  adopt  the  low  policy  which 
is  so  suitable  to  them,  so  shameful  in  the  minister  of  Truth. 

Very  different  was  the  behavior  of  the  bishops  in  the  city 
which  he  ruled  so  righteously,  a  century  and  a  half  after  his 
death.  Yielding  to  the  intrigues  of  a  successor  of  Eudoxia, — 
in  comparison  with  whom  she  was  an  angel, — a  woman  who 
had  the  greatest  interest,  one  would  have  thought,  in  believing 
that  the  love  of  God  might  convert  even  the  lowest  victims  of 
lust  and  hatred  into  His  servants  and  children, — these  reverend 
Fathers  consigned  Origen  to  endless  perdition  because  he  had 


THE  LATIN  CITURCHES.  343 


held  the  opinion  that  his  fellow-beings  were  not  intended  for  it. 
This  example  how  far  morality  was  interested  in  such  decrees, 
— how  much  of  grovelling  submission  on  the  part  of  ecclesias- 
tics to  civil  rulers  was  the  cause  of  them, — might  have  led  the 
Western  Church,  which  had  other  reasons  for  not  esteeming 
very  highly  the  orthodoxy  of  Justinian  and  Theodora,  to  pause 
before  they  advanced  in  the  same  course.  But  barbarians 
were  crowding  into  the  fold  of  Christ^who  brought  with  them 
all  the  dreams  of  a  Walhalla.  To  govern  was  the  function  of 
the  Latin  Church ;  theology  was  to  be  used  as  an  instrument 
of  government.  Distinctions,  once  established,  were  to  be 
carefully  defended  and  enforced.  But  where  none  existed,  the 
Church  was  to  prove  its  capacity  of  embracing  the  nations,  by 
adapting  herself,  with  wonderful  facility,  to  the  superstitions 
which  she  found  among  them,  by  incorporating  them  into  her 
own  body  of  doctrine,  by  stooping  to  material  influences  and 
artifices,  for  the  sake  of  moving  those  who  were  supposed  to 
have  little  or  nothing  in  them  which  could  respond  to  a  spiritual 
message.  To  a  superficial  and  yet  an  honest  observer,  the 
whole  course  of  Papal  history  looks  merely  like  a  series  of 
these  politic  appeals  to  the  appetites  of  the  lower  nature,  for 
the  sake  of  bribing  them  not  to  instigate  crimes,  or  of  enlisting 
them  in  the  service  of  the  Church, — nothing  but  a  series  of 
testimonies  what  crimes  must  be  the  result  of  such  bribery, 
what  a  service  that  must  be  which  secures  the  aid  of  such 
mercenaries.  The  efforts  to  materialize  the  terrors  of  the 
future  world,  and  to  make  those  terrors  the  great  motives  to 
obedience, — with  the  obedience  which  was  actually  produced 
by  them, — at  once  suggest  themselves  as  the  most  startling 
and  decisive  points  in  the  evidence.  The  vision  of  a  purgatory 
from  which  men  might  be  delivered  by  prayers  or  by  money, 
coming  so  much  more  near  to  the  conscience,  suggesting  so 
much  more  practical  methods  of  proceeding  than  the  mere 
distant  background  of  hopeless  torment,  offers  itself  as  the 


344  PERDITION  ;  DAMNATION. 

natural  product  of  a  scheme,  devised  to  act  upon  the  fears  and 
hopes  of  man,  not  drawn  from  the  word  of  God.  But  a  more 
careful  student  is  not  satisfied  with  this  statement  of  the  case, 
though  he  is  forced  to  confess  that  it  is  true.  He  perceh 
that  there  were  words  belonging  to  the  popular  language  of 
the  Latins,  not  derived  from  the  Greek-,  which  showed  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  respecting  eternal  life  and 
death,  had  still  a  hold  upon  the  conscience  of  the  Western 
Church. 

What  is  Perdition  but  a  loss  ?  What  is  eternal  damnation, 
but  the  loss  of  a  good  which  God  had  revealed  to  His  crea- 
tures, of  which  He  had  put  them  in  possession  ?  What  a  wit- 
ness there  lay  in  these  word-  a  when  thrown  about  by  the 
most  random  rhetorician,  against  the  notion  of  a  mere  future 
prize  to  be  won  by  men  who  could  purchase  it  by  sacrifiV 
of  a  future  misery  which  God  had  designed  for  His  creator* 
And  the  witness  was  not  inoperative.  The  noblest  Doctors  of 
the  Middle  Ages  did  believe  this  to  be  the  meaning  of  all 
which  they  di  i  for  themselves  and  for  mankind.  They 
did  believe  that  Love  was  at  the  root  of  all  things,  and  that  to 
lose  Love,  was  to  lose  all  things.  This  was  the  ground  of 
their  most  passionate  exhortations,  whatever  forms  they  might 
take.  Whatever  were  the  crudities  of  their  intellects,  this  was 
the  undoubting  testimony  of  their  hearts.  It  was  this  inward 
conviction  which  made  them  tolerant  of  the  idea  of  Purgatory 
— which  allowed  them  to  wink  with  a  dangerous  "  oeconomy  " 
at  what  they  must  have  known  were  the  abominations  con- 
nected with  it.  They  were  afraid  to  limit  the  love  which  they 
felt  had  been  so  mighty  for  them  and  for  the  world.  They  did 
not  dare  to  measure  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  and  J  lis  intercession 
by  their  notions.  The  deep  conviction  which  they  had  of  Evil 
as  opposed  to  the  nature  of  God,  made  them  shudder  as  they 
looked  down  into  that  abyss.  They  would  rather  think  of 
material  punishments  which  might,  elsewhere  as  here,  be  God's 


DANTE.  345 

instruments  of  acting  upon  the  spirit  to  awaken  it  out  of  death. 
The  great  poem  of  the  Florentine  brings  out  this  deeper  theo- 
logy of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  connexion  with  all  the  forms  in 
which  it  was  hidden.  The  loss  of  intellectual  life,  of  the  vision 
of  God,  is  with  him  the  infinite  horror  of  hell.  Men  are  in 
eternal  misery,  because  they  are  still  covetous,  proud,  loveless. 
The  evil  priest  or  pope  is  in  the  worst  circle  of  all,  because  he 
has  been  brought  most  closely  into  contact  with  spiritual  and 
eternal  things.  Even  here,  there  are  all  varieties  of  evil, 
approximations  to  penitence  and  good.  The  purgatory  is  the 
ascent,  not  out  of  material  torments,  but  out  of  moral  evil,  into 
a  higher  moral  state.  The  Paradise  is  the  consummation  of 
that  state  in  the  vision  of  perfect  truth  and  love.  Those  who 
dwell  there,  are  ever  looking  down  upon  the  poor  wanderers 
below,  aware  of  their  strifes,  choosing  guides  for  them, — it 
may  be  some  poet  of  the  old  wTorld, — who  shall  be  helpers  in 
their  perplexity,  who  shall  enable  them  to  have  a  clearer  vision 
of  the  order  which  lies  beneath  the  confusions  of  the  wTorld, 
of  the  divine  government  to  which  all  human  governments 
must  submit,  and  by  which  they  must  be  judged.  There  may 
be  all  material  accidents  about  the  poem,  derived  from  the  age 
in  which  it  was  written ;  but  that  this  is  its  theological  sub- 
stance, I  do  not  think  any  considerate  reader  has  ever  doubted. 
But  whatever  right  we  have  to  detect  that  theology,  through 
its  external  coverings,  in  the  writings  of  divines  or  of  patriots, 
the  two  were  inextricably  blended  in  the  popular  as  well  as 
the  scholastical  teaching,  and  the  darkness  was  endeavoring 
more  and  more  to  draw  down  the  light  into  itself.  In  the 
period  between  Dante  and  the  Reformation,  there  were  many 
in  Germany,  in  England,  in  France, — one  noble  Dominican  at 
least  in  his  own  Florence, — who  were  laboring  to  disentangle 
the  threads,  and  to  teach  Christendom  that  moral  evil  is  the 
eternal  misery  from  which  they  need  to  be  delivered,  the  right- 
eousness of  God  the  good  which  they  have  to  attain.  But  dilet- 

15* 


346  LUTHER. 

lanti  popes,  who  believed  nothing  and  therefore  were  desirous 
that  the  world  which  they  ruled  should  believe  everything, 
who  promoted  letters  by  denying  all  knowledge  to  the  people, 
who  built  churches  to  him  who  they  said  was  the  rock  of  the 
Church,  by  the  help  of  missionaries  who  proved  that  it  stood 
upon  no  rock  but  money, — these  popes  were  consummating  all 
the  confusions  that  had  been  in  the  theology  of  the  Church 
before ;  were  establishing,  once  for  all,  the  doctrine  that  the 
thing  men  have  to  dread  is  punishment  and  not  sin,  and  that 
the  greatest  reward  which  the  highest  power  in  the  Church 
can  hold  out  is  deliverance  from  punishment,  not  deliverance 
from  sin.  Let  us  understand  it  well ;  it  was  against  this  doc- 
trine that  Luther  protested  in  his  theses  at  Wittenberg.  Every 
thing  in  these  theses,  ything  in  his  subsequent  career,  turns 
upon  the  tion  that  a  man  requires  and  desires  punishment, 

not  indulgence,  when  he  lias  done  evil;  that,  if  you  cannot 
•  him  from  evil  you  do  him  no  service;  that  Tetzel  had 
therefore  not  only  been  robbing  people  of  their  money,  had  not 
only  been  uttering  wild  and  blasphemous  words  about  his  own 
powers  and  the  powers  of  those  who  sent  him,  but  that  he 
had  been  promising  that  which  it  is  not  good  for  a  man  to 
have,  which  a  man  should  most  earnestly  pray  not  to  have,  but 
to  escape  from,  if  it  could  be  given  him  for  nothing.  That 
which  we  call  the  great  proclamation  of  the  Reformation,  that 
a  man  is  justified  by  faith  alone,  becomes  intelligible  through 
this  principle,  and  is  not  intelligible  without  it.  Luther  declared 
that  what  man  wants  is  freedom  from  sin  and  not  freedom 
from  punishment,  that  righteousness  is  the  reward  we  crave 
for.  And  then  he  said,  "  This  freedom,  which  no  pope  can 
give  you,  this  reward  which  you  can  acquire  by  no  efforts  and 
labors  of  yours,  God  has  given  you  freely  in  Christ.  Believ- 
ing in  Christ,  the  righteous  One,  you  rise  out  of  your  own  sins, 
you  become  righteous  men,  you  are  able  to  do  righteous  acts." 
And  this  doctrine,  which  wTe  are  told  in  our  days  is  so  fine  and 


THE  ENGLISH  ARTICLES.  347 

abstract,  that  no  men  can  listen  to  it  or  care  for  it,  except  some 
people  of  delicate  and  tender  consciences,  went  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Europe,  spoke  to  the  hearts  of  the  com- 
monest handicraftsmen  and  laborers,  was  recognised  by  them 
as  the  message  which  they  were  waiting  to  hear,  because  it 
enabled  them  to  obtain  a  moral  standing  ground  and  a  moral 
life,  which  threats  of  future  punishments  and  hopes  of  outward 
rewards  had  never  won  for  them. 

The  consequence  of  this  doctrine  where  it  was  believed,  was 
unquestionably  to  bring  out  the  contrast  between  the  good  and 
evil  state  so  distinctly  and  sharply,  that  the  notion  of  any  inter- 
mediate state  between  these,  was  vehemently  rejected.  Hell 
as  the  state  of  unrighteousness,  Heaven  as  the  state  of  right- 
eousness, Earth  as  the  battle-field  between  the  two,  filled  and 
possessed  the  mind.  Even  if  purgatory  had  not  been  so  con- 
nected with  the  system  of  indulgences,  it  could  scarcely  have 
found  its  place  among  the  thoughts  which  were  then  driving  all 
others  before  them.  In  the  great  Jesuit  reaction  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  it  recovered  its  hold  upon  numbers,  who  had 
been  dispossessed  of  it,  because  the  social  feelings  and  sympa- 
thies of  men  and  their  sense  of  an  intimate  connexion  between 
the  visible  and  the  invisible  world,  for  which  the  Middle  Age 
theology,  amidst  all  its  confusions,  had  borne  witness,  had  met 
with  a  very  inadequate  recognition  in  the  different  schools  of 
the  Reformation.  But  though  this  was  the  case,  it  is  not  true 
that  Protestantism  has  pronounced  more  positively  than  Eo- 
manism  did  upon  the  future  condition  of  men.  So  far  as  our  * 
own  Church  is  concerned,  the  assertion  is  not  only  wide  of  the 
truth,  but  is  directly  in  opposition  to  it. 

In  the  first  draft  of  our  Articles,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI., 
one  was  introduced,  the  forty-second,  which  contained  a  decree 
upon  this  subject.  It  was  expressed  in  the  most  moderate 
terms.  It  merely  declared  that  "  They  also  are  worthy  of  con- 
demnation who  endeavor  at  this  time  to  restore  the  dangerous 


348  THE  FOKTY-SECOND. 

opinion,  that  all  men,  be  they  never  so  ungodly,  shall  at  length 
be  saved,  when  they  have  suffered  pain  for  their  sins  a  certain 
time  appointed  by  God's  justice." 

After  what  I  have  said  of  the  character  of  the  Reformation,  it 
cannot  be  wonderful  that  those  who  had  entered  most  into  the 
spirit  of  it,  should  be  most  anxious  to  show  that  pain  did  not 
make  amends  for  sin,  and  that  the  misery  of  sin  does  not  con- 
sist in  an  arbitrary  penalty  affixed  to  it  by  God,  who  has  sent 
His  Son  to  make  men  righteous.  On  these  grounds  the  Divines 
of  Edward  VI.'s  reign  might  easily  have  excused  themselves  to 
their  contemporaries,  and  even  to  their  successors,  for  adopt- 
ing an  Article  which  had  already  been  sanctioned  at  Augs- 
burg. Nevertheless  it  has  been  contended,  with  great  reason- 
ableness, from  the  expression  >;  at  this  time,"  and  from  two 
other  Articles  which  are  found  in  the  same  draft,  that  this 
sentence  was  devised  to  meet  a  special  emergency.  The 
Anabaptists,  among  a  number  of  other  I  ,  all  of  which  had 

taken  a  sensual  and  a  revolutionary  form,  had  propounded 
some  theory  like  that  which  the  Reformers  here  denounced. 
Every  one  knows  how  eager  Lutherans,  Calvini.-ts,  and  English 
Reformers  were  to  disclaim  sympathy  with  those  who  had  done 
so  much  to  make  the  new  doctriftes  odious  in  the  eyes  of 
Europe.  It  was  very  likely  indeed  that  this  eagerness  should 
be  exhibited  in  any  careful  digest  of  their  own  doctrines,  lint 
the  dread  of  the  danger  had  subsided  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  It  had  not,  indeed,  so  subsided  that  the  framers 
of  the  Articles  in  that  reign  thought  it  safe  to  omit  a  special 
denunciation  of  the  doctrine  of  community  of  goods.  But  they 
could  venture,  and  they  seized  the  privilege,  to  strike  out  the 
forty- second  Article. 

This  statement  is  not  mine.  It  is  the  justification  which  is 
offered  for  the  compilers  of  our  Articles,  by  those  who  would 
have  wished  them  to  dogmatize  most  peremptorily  on  the  sub- 
ject. Taking  their  explanation,  the  evidence  that  the  members 


THE  OMISSION  OF  IT.  349 

of  the  Church  of  England  have  perfect  freedom  on  this  subject, 
is  irresistible.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  invent  a  case  in  one's 
mind,  which  would  be  equally  strong.  Mere  silence  might  be 
accounted  for.  But  here  is  omission,  careful  considerate  omis- 
sion, in  a  document  for  future  times,  of  that  which  had  been 
too  hastily  admitted,  to  meet  an  emergency  of  that  time.  The 
omission  was  made  by  persons  who  probably  were  strong  in 
the  belief  that  the  punishment  of  wicked  men  is  endless,  but 
who  did  not  dare  to  enforce  that  opinion  upon  others ;  above 
all,  who  did  not  dare  to  say  that  the  words  Eternal  and  Ever- 
lasting, which  they  knew  had  such  a  profound  and  sacred 
meaning  in  reference  to  God  Himself,  and  to  the  revelation  of 
his  Son,  could  be  shrivelled  and  contracted  into  this  signifi- 
cation. 

III.  I  have  answered  two  of  the  objections  at  some  length. 
I  have  considered  how  it  is  that  the  New  Testament  speaks 
more  of  eternal  life  and  of  eternal  punishment  than  the  Old  ; 
how  the  usage  of  the  words  in  the  New  Testament  explains 
that  fact,  and  is  explained  by  it;  how,  instead  of  interfering ( 
with  the  assertion  of  St.  Paul,  that  it  is  the  ivill  of  God,  that 
all  men  should  be  saved,  and  of  St.  John,  that  God  is  love  ; 
without  these  words,  the  others  would  be  inexplicable.  Next, 
the  charge  that  there  has  been  a  tendency  throughout  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  to  determine  the  limits  of  God's  love  to 
men,  and  to  speak  of  all  but  a  few  as  hopelessly  lost,  but  that 
this  tendency  has  been  much  more  marked  and  strong  in  Pro- 
testants than  in  Romanists,  so  that  we  are  much  more  bound 
by  the  opinion  than  they  were, — I  have  met  by  a  sketch  of  the 
history  of  opinion  upon  this  subject,  which,  however  slight,  I 
believe  is  accurate,  and  will  bear  examination.  And  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  deepest  and  most  essential 
part  of  the  theology  previous  to  the  Reformation,  bore  witness 
to  the  fact  that  eternal  life  is  the  knowledge  of  God  who  is 
Love,  and  eternal  death  the  loss  of  that  knowledge ;  that  it 


350  METAPHYSICS. 

was  the  superficial  theology, — that  which  belonged  to  the  Pa- 
pal system  as  such, — which  interfered  with  this  belief;  that  it 
was  the  great  effort  of  the  Reformation  to  sweep  away  that 
superficial  theology,  in  order  that  Righteousness  and  Evil, 
Love  and  Hatred,  might  stand  out  as  the  two  eternal  oppo- 
sites;  the  one  as  the  eternal  life  which  God  presents  to  men — 
the  other  as  the  eternal  death  which  they  choose  for  them- 
selves, and  which  consists  in  being  at  war  with  His  love.  I 
have  now  to  consider  the  third  statement,  that,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  case  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  theologians 
have  in  our  age  become  entirely  positive  and  dogmatic  upon 
this  subject;  that  upon  it  they  can  brook  no  doubt  or  diversity 
of  opinion;  that  in  faet,  they  hold  that  a  man  is  as  much 
bound  to  say  "  I  believe  in  the  endless  punishment  of  the 
iter  portion  of  mankind  ?'  as  "  I  believe  in  God  the  Father, 
in  God  the  Son,  and  in  God  the  Holy  Ghost." 

I  wish  that  I  felt  as  able  to  controvert  these  propositions  as 
the  others.  Hut  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  the  evidence  for 
them  is  ver.  og.       Perhaps  I  may  be   permitted  to  trace 

io  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  this  state  of  feeliog. 
They  will  account,  I  think,  for  the  existence  of  it,  at  least  un- 
der certain  modifications,  in  very  good  men.  They  will  explain 
what  are  likely  to  be  the  issues  of  it  if  it  is  not  counteracted. 
They  may  help  to  show  English  Churchmen,  and  especially 
English  Clergymen,  what  their  standing-ground  is,  and  what 
their  obligations  are,  if  they  are  really  stewards  of  the  everlas- 
ting Gospel. 

I.  Everyone  must  be  aware  how  much  the  philosophical 
teaching  under  which  we  have  grown  up,  unconsciously  modi- 
fies our  thoughts  and  opinions  on  a  multitude  of  subjects  which 
we  suppose  to  be  beyond  its  range.  Luther's  first  battles,  i 
his  letters  show  as,  were  with  Aristotle  :  he  found  how  much 
the  habits  of  thought  learnt  from  him,  and  consecrated  in  the 
schools,  interfered  with  the  understanding  of  St.  Paul.     He 


ARISTOTLE;    LOCKE.  351 

wanted  his  pupils  to  look  directly  at  the  sense  of  Scripture ; 
they  came  with  certain  preconceived  notions  which  they  impu- 
ted to  the  Sacred  writers  ;  any  one  who  construed  them  with- 
out reference  to  these  notions  was  supposed  to  depart  from 
their  natural,  simple  meaning.  It  was  not  that  Aristotle  might 
not  be  an  exceedingly  useful  teacher  for  certain  purposes ;  but 
what  Bacon  discovered  to  be  true  of  him  in  the  investigation 
of  Nature,  Luther  discovered  to  be  true  in  the  investigation  of 
Scripture.  His  logical  determinations  and  arrangements,  even 
his  accurate  observations,  hindered  the  student,  who  was  not 
to  bring  wisclom,  but  to  seek  it. 

What  Aristotle  was  to  the  German  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
John  Locke  is  to  an  Englishman  in  the  nineteenth.  His 
dogmas  have  become  part  of  our  habitual  faith ;  they  are  ac- 
cepted without  study,  as  a  tradition.  In  this  respect  he  resem- 
bles his  predecessor.  Proscribed  at  first  by  divines  for  the 
Essay  on  the  Understanding  more  than  for  his  politics  or  his 
interpretations  of  Scripture,  just  as  Aristotle  was  proscribed 
by  popes  in  the  twelfth  centur}', — divines  now  assume  that 
Essay  to  be  the  rule  and  measure  of  thought  and  language, 
even  as  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  Stagirite  Metaphysics 
became  the  rule  and  measure  of  thought  and  language  to 
all  orthodox  schoolmen.  But  there  is  this  difference.  Aris- 
totle belongs  merely*  to  the  schools;  Locke  connects  the 
schools  with  the  world.  He  found  a  number  of  mystifications 
which  doctors  were  canonising.  He  courageously  applied 
himself  to  the  removal  of  them.  The  conscience  of  ordinary 
men  recognised  him  as  their  champion.  He  spoke  to  the  love 
of  the  simple  and  practical,  in  which  lies  the  strength  of  the 
English  character.  He  asked  men  who  were  using  phrases 
which  they  had  inherited,  and  to  which  they  attached  no  mean- 
ing, to  give  an  account  of  them,  and  if  they  could  not,  to  sur- 
render them.  It  was  evident  that  he  had  an  immense  advan- 
tage over  his  opponents,  because  he  understood  himself,  and 
because  he  had  determined  to  be  faithful  to  his  own  convic- 


352  HIS  AUTHORITY  IN  ENGLAND. 

tions.  He  succeeded  in  persuading  those  who  believed  very 
little,  not  to  pretend  to  believe  more  than  they  did.  "Who  can 
doubt  that  this  was  a  good  and  great  service  to  mankind  ?  But 
it  involved  this  consequence.  If  men  should  chance  h  ere  a  It  t 
to  discover  that  some  of  the  principles  held  by  their  ancestors 
had  a  substance  and  meaning  in  them',  however  little  that 
substance  and  meaning  might  be  represented  in  the  dialect  of 
the  day,  there  would  be  considerable  difficulty  in  recovering 
the  possession.  It  would  be  supposed  that  the  good  sense  of 
a  great  man  had  settled  the  question  for  ever,  and  those  who 
knew  little  howr  it  had  been  settled  or  what  there  was  to  settle, 
would  be  just  as  zealous  in  discountenancing  and  ridiculing 
any  further  investigation,  as  if  they  were  bowing  to  a  dictator 
— not  accepting  help  from  one  who  had  protested  against  dic- 
tation. 

When  any  one  ventures  to  say  to  an  English  audience,  that 
Eternity  is  not  a  mere  negation  of  time,  that  it  denotes  some- 
thing real,  substantial,  before  all  time,  he  is  told  at  once  that 
he  is  departing  from  the  simple  intelligible  meaning  of  words; 
that  he  is  introducing  novelties  ;  that  he  is  talking  abstractions. 
This  langu;  etly  honest  in  the  mouths  of  those  who 

use  it.     But  they  do  not  know  where  they  learnt  it.     They  did 
not  get  it  from  peasants,  or  women,  or  children.     They  did  not 

;  it  from  the  Bible.  They  got  it  from  Locke.  And  if  I  find 
that  I  cannot  interpret  the  language  and  thoughts  of  peasants 
and  women,  and  children,  and  that  I  cannot  interpret  the  plain- 
est passages  of  the  Bible  or  the  whole  context  of  it,  while  I 
look  through  the  Locke  spectacles, — I  must  cast  them  aside. 
I  am  sure  Locke  would  wish  me  to  do  so,  for  I  believe  he  was 
a  thoroughly  honest  man,  and  one  who  desired  nothing  less  in 
the  world,  than  that  he  should  become  an  oppressor  to  the  spi- 
rits which  he  supposed  he  was  setting  free. 

Here  then  is  one  cause  of  our  present  state  of  feeling  respect- 
ing the  question  which  I  am  now  considering;  here  is  a  proof 
how  much  that  state  of  feeling  must  affect  a  multitude  of  sub- 


ROMISH    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  353 

jects,  besides  that  of  everlasting  punishment.  "When  the  Scrip- 
tures speak  of  Eternity  they  must  mean  endlessness;  they  can 
mean  nothing  else.  To  be  sure  they  do  mean  something  else, 
when  they  speak  of  God's  eternity ;  but  we  have  only  to  put 
in  also  l  without  beginning '  to  that,  and  all  is  right."  The 
divines  who  use  such  language,  are  supported  by  those  who 
most  object  to  the  conclusion  which  they  deduce  from  it.  The 
old  Unitarian  cannot  give  up  Locke.  The  orthodox  Dissent- 
ers have  always  supposed  that  he  must  be  right,  because 
Churchmen  disliked  him  for  his  notions  of  government  and 
toleration.  Practical  men  suspect  that  some  German  mysti- 
cism must  be  near,  when  his  decrees  are  disputed.  And  those 
who  have  no  dread  of  this  mysticism,  and  who  know  that  the 
explorers  of  other  nations  have  passed  beyond  the  Hercules 
pillars,  within  which  our  navigators  confine  themselves,  and 
have  even  affirmed  the  existence  of  islands  and  continents  where 
Locke  supposed  there  was  nothing  but  ocean,  yet  ask  "  what 
that  has  to  do  with  old  Hebrews  like  Paul  or  John  ?  of  course 
they  knew  nothing  about  these  islands  and  continents.  The 
coarsest,  most  material  view  of  things  is  most  suitable  to  them." 
Nearly  all  people  therefore  in  this  country,  who  speak  on  such 
matters,  are  agreed  that  the  words  of  the  Gospel,  if  they  were 
taken  strictly  and  fairly,  must  have  the  hardest  (I  do  not  say  the 
most  awful,  for  I  believe  the  sense  I  contend  for  is  much  more 
awful)  meaning  which  has  ever  been  given  them.  Only  the  tens 
and  hundreds  of  thousands  who  cannot  speak,  dissent  from 
that  decision. 

2.  However  hard  and  exclusive  the  Romish  Church  may  have 
been, — though  the  great  complaint  we  make  of  her  is,  that  she 
excommunicates  those  who  are  members  of  the  body  of  Christ 
as  much  as  she  is, — it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  she  takes  up 
a  position  which  looks,  at  least,  much  more  comprehensive  than 
that  of  the  Protestant  bodies.  She  assumes  the  Church  to 
represent  mankind.     The  day  before  Good  Friday,  the  Pope 


354  PROTESTANT  EXCLUSIVENE8S. 

blesses  the  universe.  The  sacrifice  which  she  presents  day  by 
day,  is  declared  to  be  that  sacrifice  which  was  made  for  the  sins 
of  the  whole  world.  We  believe  that  the  strongest  witness  we 
have  to  bear  is,  that  the  sacrifice  was  made  once  for  all ;  that  our 
acts  do  not  complete  it,  but  are  only  possible  because  it  is  com- 
plete, that  they  arc  grounded  upon  our  right  to  present  that  con 
tinually  to  the  Father,  with  which  He  has  declared  Himself  well 
] (leased.  AVe  ought)  therefore,  to  assert  the  redemption  of  man- 
kind more  distinctly  than  they  do.  But  it  is  clear  that  in  prac- 
tice we  do  not  seem  to  the  world  to  do  so,  nor  seem  to  our- 
selves to  do  so.  The  distinctiveness,  the  individuality  of  Pro- 
testantism is  its  strength,  as  I  have  maintained  before  in  th 
Essays^  But  close  to  that  strength  is  its  greatest  weakness, 
that  which  we  all  feel, — which  all,  in  some  sort,  confess, — which 
is  the  root  of  our  sectarianism — which  is  continually  kept  alive 
by  it;  and  yet,  which  is  destroying  the  Very  bodies  that  it  has 
1.  What  is  the  consequence  to  theology  1  The  religious 
men,  the  saved  men,  are  looked  QpOD  as  the  exceptions  to  a 
rule;  the  world  is  fallen,  outcast,  ruined;  a  few  Christians, 
about  the  signs  and  tokens  of  whose  Christianity  each  sect  dif- 
fers, have  been  rescued  from  the  ruin.  I  have  had  to  speak  in 
aim  v  page  of  this  book,  respecting  the  habit  of  mind 

t<>  which  this  opinion  appertains;  and  to  show  how  it  is  at  war 
with  all  the  articles  of  the  Christian  faith.  I  only  wish  to  point 
out  here,  how  it  bears  upon  the  subject  of  everlasting  salvation 
and  damnation.  Damnation  does  not  mean  what  its  etymolo 
would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  it  means,  what  it  certainly  did 
mean  to  the  Church  in  former  days,  amidst  all  rplexities 

and  confusions.  It  is  not  the  loss  of  a  mighty  gift  which  has 
been  bestowed  upon  the  race.  Men  are  not  regarded  as  reject- 
ingthe  counsel  of  God  against  themselves.  God  is  represented 
the  destroyer.  Nay,  Divines  go  the  length  of  asserting — 
even  of  taking  it  for  granted, — that  our  Lord  Himself  taught 
this  lesson  to  His  disciples  when  He  said,  "And  I  say  unto  you 


PERVERSION  OF  OUR  LORD'S  WORDS.  355 

my  friends,  Be  not  afraid  of  them  which  kill  the  body,  and  after 
that,  have  no  more  that  they  can  do ;  but  I  will  forewarn  you 
whom  ye  shall  fear :  Fear  him  which,  after  he  hath  killed, 
hath  power  to  cast  into  hell,  yea,  I  say  unto  you,  fear  him. 
Are  not  five  sparrows  sold  for  two  farthings  ?  and  not  one  of 
them  is- forgotten  before  God.  But  even  the  very  hairs  of  your 
head  are  all  numbered.  Fear" not,  therefore;  ye  are  of  more 
value  than  many  sparrows."  We  are  come  to  such  a  pass,  as 
actually  to  suppose  that  Christ  tells  those  whom  He  calls  His 
friends,  not  to  be  afraid  of  the  poor  and  feeble  enemies  who 
can  only  kill  the  body,  but  of  that  greater  enemy  who  can  destroy 
their  very  selves,  and  that  this  enemy  is — not  the  devil,  not  the 
spirit  who  is  going  about  seeking  whom  he  may  devour,  not 
him  wrho  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning, — but  that  God 
who  cares  for  the  sparrows  !  They  are  to  be  afraid  lest  He 
who  numbers  the  hairs  of  their  head  should  be  plotting  their 
ruin  !  Does  not  this  interpretation,  which  has  become  so  fami- 
liar, that  one  hears  it  without  even  a  hint  that  there  is  another, 
show  us  on  the  edge  of  what  an  abyss  we  are  standing,  how 
likely  we  are  to  confound  the  Father  of  lights  with  the  Spirit 
of  darkness  ? 

While  this  temper  of  mind  continues,  it  is  absolutely  inevi- 
table that  we  should  not  merely  look  upon  the  immense  majo- 
rity of  our  fellow-creatures  as  doomed  to  perdition,  but  that  we 
should  regard  the  Gospel  as  itself  pronouncing  their  doom. 
The  message  which,  according  to  this  view  of  the  case,  Christ 
brings  from  Heaven  to  earth  is,  "  Your  Father  has  created 
multitudes  whom  He  means  to  perish  for  ever  and  ever.  By 
my  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  my  cross  and  passion,  I  have 
induced  Him  in  the  case  of  an  inconceivably  small  minority  to 
forego  that  design."  Dare  we  state  that  proposition  to  our- 
selves, dare  we  get  up  into  a  pulpit  and  preach  it  ?  But  if  we 
dare  not,  seeing  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  and  there  must 
be  no  trifling  or  equivocation  about  it,  let  us  distinctly  tell  our- 


356  OPINIONS  OF  THE  LAITY. 

selves  what  we  do  mean,  and  if  we  find  that  a  blasphemous 
thought  has  mingled  with  our  belief  hitherto,  let  us  confess  that 
thought  to  God,  and  ask  Him  to  deliver  us  from  it. 

3.  I  cannot  wonder  that  Divines,  even  those  who  would 
shrink  with  horror  from  such  a  view  of  God's  character  and 
His  Gospel  as  this,  should  crave  for  some  more  distinct  appre- 
hensions, nay  even  statements  respecting  eternal  punishment, 
than  might  perhaps  be  needful  in  former  days.  It  is  quite 
clear,  that  the  words  which  go  forth  from  our  pulpits  on  the 
subject,  have  no  effect  at  all  upon  cultivated  men  of  any  class, 
except  the  effect  of  making  them  regard  our  other  utterances 
with  indifference  and  disbelief.  They  do  not  think  that  we  put 
faith  in  our  own  denunciations.  They  ask,  how  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  go  about  and  enjoy  life  if  we  do  ;  how,  if  we  do,  we 
can  look  out  upon  the  world  that  is  around  us  and  the  world 
that  has  been,  without  cursing  the  day  on  which  we  were 
bora 3  They  say  that  we  pronounce  a  general  sentence,  and 
then  explain  it  away  in  each  particular  i  they  say,  that  we 

believe  that  God  condemns  the  world  generally,  but  that 
under  cover  of  certain  phrases  which  may  mean  anything  or 
nothing,  we  can  prove  that,  on  the  whole,  He  rather  intends  it 
good  than  ill.  Tl.  .-,  that  we  call  upon  them  to  praise  Him 

and  give  Him  thanks,  and  that  what  we  mean  is,  that  they  are 
to  testify  emotions  towards  Him  which  they  do  not  feel,  and 
which  His  character,  as  we  represent  it,  cannot  inspire,  in 
order  to  avert  His  wrath  from  them.  Cultivated  men,  I  say, 
repeat  these  things  to  one  another.  If  we  do  not  commonly 
hear  them,  it  is  because  they  count  it  rude  ever  to  tell  us  what 
they  think.  Poor  men  say  th<  me  things  in  their  own  assem- 

blies with  more  breadth  an.!  honesty,  not  wishing  us  to  be 
ignorant  of  their  opinions  respecting  us.  And  though  these 
considerations,  so  far  as  they  concern  ourselves,  may  not  move 
us,  how  can  we  help  being  moved  by  their  effect  on  those 


THE   EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE.  357 

who  utter  them  ?  If  we  believe  that  the  words  Eternal  Dam- 
nation or  Death  have  a  very  terrible  significance,  such  as  the 
Bible  tells  us  they  have,  is  it  nothing  that  they  should  be 
losing  all  their  significance  for  our  countrymen  ?  Is  it  nothing 
that  they  should  seem  to  them  mere  idle  nursery-words  that 
frighten  children,  but  with  which  men  have  nothing  to  do  ?  Is 
it  nothing,  that  a  vague  dream  of  bliss  hereafter  into  which 
righteousness  and  goodness  do  not  enter,  which  has  no  relation 
to  God,  should  float  before  the  minds  of  numbers,  but  that  it 
should  have  just  as  little  power  to  awaken  them  to  any  higher 
or  better  life,  as  the  dread  of  the  future  has  to  keep  them 
from  any  evil  ? 

The  members  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  perceive,  more  or 
less  clearly,  that  this  is  the  state  of  things  which  has  increased 
and  is  increasing,  among  us.  They  hear  of  a  vague  Univer- 
salism  being  preached  from  some  pulpits  in  America  and  on 
the  Continent.  They  think  that  notion  must  encourage  sinners 
to  suppose  that  a  certain  amount  of  punishment  will  be  enough 
to  clear  off  their  scores,  and  to  procure  them  ultimate  bliss. 
"  You  are  relaxing  the  strictness  of  your  statements,"  they  say, 
"just  when  they  need  to  be  more  stringent,  because  all  moral 
obligations  are  becoming  laxer,  because  people  are  evidently 
casting  off  their  fear,  without  obtaining  anything  better  in  the 
place  of  it.  Therefore  they  conclude  that  such  freedom  must 
be  checked.  It  cannot  answer,  they  think,  now,  however  it 
may  have  answered  heretofore,  to  leave  any  loop-hole  for 
doubt  about  the  endless  punishment  of  the  wicked. 

I  have  stated  the  arguments  which  I  think  may  have  inclined 
worthy  and  excellent  men  to  arrive  at  this  conclusion ;  though 
I  believe  a  more  fatal  one,  one  more  certain  to  undermine  the 
truth  which  is  in  their  hearts,  and  which  they  are  seeking  to 
defend,  cannot  be  imagined.  We  do,  it  seems  to  me,  need  to 
have  a  more  distinct  and  awful  idea  of  eternal  death  and  eter- 


358  REAL  FEARS  OF  MEN. 

nal  punishment  than  we  have.  I  use  both  words,  Death  and 
Punishment i  that  I  may  not  appear  to  shrink  from  the  sense 
which  is  contained  in  either.  Punishment,  I  believe,  seems  to 
most  men  less  dreadful  than  death,  because  they  cannot  separ- 
ate it  from  a  punisher,  because  they  believe,  however  faintly, 
that  he  who  is  punishing  them  is  a  Father.  The  thought  of 
His  ceasing  to  punish  them,  of  His  letting  them  alone,  of  His 
leaving  them  to  themselves,  is  the  real,  the  unutterable  horror. 
A  man  may  be  living  without  God  in  the  world,  he  may  be 
trembling  at  His  Name,  sometimes  wishing  that  He  did  not 
exist;  and  yet  if  you  told  him  that  he  was  going  where  there 
would  be  no  God,  no  one  to  watch  over  him,  no  one  to  care 
for  him,  the  news  would  be  almost  intolerabi  We  do  shrink 
from  thin;  all  men,  whatever  they  may  fancy,  are  more  appal- 
led at  the  thoughts  of  being  friendless,  homeless,  fatherle 
than  at  any  outward  terrors  you  can  threaten  them  with.  I 
know  well  how  the  conscience  contuses  this  anticipation  with 
that  of  meeting  God,  with  being  brought  face  to  face  with  Him. 
The  mixture  of  feelings  adds  infinitely  to  the  horror  of  them. 
Tin  w  of  wrath  abiding  on  the  spirit  which  has  re- 

fused the  yoke  oflove.  This  is  one  part  of  the  misery.  There  is 
a  sense  of  loneliness  and  atheism.  This  is  another.  And 
surely  this,  this  is  the  bottomless  pit  which  men  see  before 
them,  and  to  which  they  feel  that  they  are  hurrying,  when  they 
have  led  selfish  lives,  and  are  growing  harder,  and  colder,  and 
darker  every  hour.  Can  we  not  tell  them  that  it  is  even  so, 
that  this  is  the  abyss  of  death,  that  second  death,  of  which  all 
material  images  offer  only  the  faintest  picture  ?  Will  not  that 
show  them  more  clearly  what  life  is,  the  risen  life,  the  eternal 
that  which  was  with  the  Father  and  has  been  manifested 
to  v.  Will  it  not  enable  us  to  say,  "This  life  is  that  for 
which  God  has  created  man,  for  which  He  has  redeemed  man 
in  His  Son,  which  He  is   sending  His  Spirit  to  work  out  in 


HOW  TO  MEET  THEM.  359 

man  ?"  Will  it  not  enable  us  to  say,  "  This  eternal  death  is 
that  from  which  God  sent  His  Son  to  deliver  men,  from  which 
He  has  delivered  them  ?  If  they  fall  into  it,  it  is  because  they 
choose  it,  because  they  embrace  it,  because  they  resist  a  power 
which  is  always  at  work  to  save  them  from  it."  By  delivering 
such  a  message  as  this  to  men,  should  we  not  be  doing  more 
to  make  thein  aware  how  the  revelation  of  God's  righteous- 
ness for  the  redemption  of  sinners  is  at  the  same  time  the 
revelation  of  the  wrath  of  God  against  all  unrighteousness  and 
ungodliness  ?  Would  not  such  a  message  show  that  a  Gospel 
of  eternal  love  must  bring  out  more  clearly  than  any  mere  law 
can,  that  state  which  is  the  resistance  to  it  and  the  contradic- 
tion of  it  ?  But  would  not  such  a  message  at  the  same  time 
present  itself  to  the  conscience  of  men  not  as  an  outrage 
on  their  experience,  but  as  the  faithful  interpreter  of  it,  not  as 
disproving  everything  that  they  have  dreamed  of  the  willing- 
ness of  God  to  save  them,  but  as  proving  that  He  is  willing  and 
able  to  save  them  to  the  very  uttermost  ? 

Suppose  instead  of  taking  this  method  of  asserting  the  truth 
of  all  God's  words,  the  most  blessed  and  the  most  tremendous, 
we  reject  the  wisdom  of  our  forefathers  and  enact  an  article 
declaring  that  all  are  heretics  and  deniers  of  the  truth,  who  do 
not  hold  that  Eternal  means  endless,  and  that  there  cannot  be 
a  deliverance  from  eternal  punishment.  What  is  the  con- 
sequence 1  Simply  this,  I  believe  :  the  whole  Gospel  of  God 
is  set  aside.  The  state  of  eternal  life  and  eternal  death  is  not 
one  we  can  refer  only  to  the  future,  or  that  we  can  in  any  wise 
identify  with  the  future.  Every  man  who  knows  what  it  is  to 
have  been  in  a  state  of  sin,  knows  what  it  is  to  have  been  in  a 
state  of  death.  He  cannot  connect  that  death  with  time ;  he  m  ust 
say  that  Christ  has  brought  him  out  of  the  bonds  of  eternal 
death.  Throw  that  idea  into  the  future  and  you  deprive  it  of 
all  its  reality,  of  all  its  power.     I  know  what  it  means  all  too 


360  TIIE  QUESTION  STATED. 

well  while  you  let  me  connect  it  with  my  present  and  personal 
being,  with  the  pangs  of  conscience  which  I  suffer  now.  It 
becomes  a  mere  vague  dream  and  shadow  to  me,  when  you 
project  it  into  a  distant  world.  And  if  you  take  from  me  the 
belief  that  God  is  always  righteous,  always  maintaining  a  fight 
with  evil,  always  seeking  to  bring  His  creatures  out  of  it,  you 
take  everything  from  me,  all  hope  now,  all  hope  in  the  world 
to  come.  Atonement,  Eedemption,  Satisfaction,  Regeneration, 
become  mere  words  to  which  there  is  no  counterpart  in 
reality. 

I  ask  no  one  to  pronounce,  for  I  dare  not  pronounce  myself, 
what  are  the  possibilities  of  resistance  in  a  human  will  to  the 
loving  will  of  God.  There  are  times  when  they  seem  to  me — 
thinking  of  myself  more  than  of  others — almost  infinite.  But  I 
know  that  there  is  something  which  must  be  infinite.  I  am 
obliged  to  believe  in  an  abyss  of  love  which  is  deeper  than  the 
abyss  of  death  :  I  dare  not  lose  faith  in  that  love.  I  sink  into 
death,  eternal  death  if  I  do.  1  must  feel  that  this  love  is  com- 
passing the  universe.  More  about  it  I  cannot  know.  But 
God  knows.     I  leave  myself  and  all  to  Him. 

It  is  of  this  faith  that  some  are  seeking  to  rob  us.  J  lave  we 
made  up  our  minds  to  surrender  it  ?  Have  we  resolved  that 
the  belief  in  Endless  Punishment  shall  be  not  a  tenet  which 
any  one  is  at  liberty  to  hold, — as  any  one  is  at  liberty  to 
hold  the  notion  that  the  elements  are  changed  in  the  Lord's 
Supper,  provided  he  does  not  force  the  notion  upon  me,  and 
will  come  with  me  to  eat  of  a  feast  which  is  beyond  all  notions, 
— but  the  tenet  of  the  Church  to  which  every  other  is  subor- 
dinate; just  as  Transubstantiation  has  become  in  the  Romish 
Church  since  it  has  been  declared  essential  to  all  who  partake 
of  the  Eucharist?  Let  us  consider,  not  chiefly  what  we  are 
accepting,  but  what  we  are  rejecting,  before  we  tamely  sub- 
mit  to  this  new  imposition. 


•  our  lord's  method.  361 

There  is  one  other  consideration  which  I  would  impress  very 
earnestly  upon  my  brethren — especially  upon  the  Clergy,  be- 
fore I  conclude.  The  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  is  avow- 
edly put  forward  as  necessary  for  the  reprobates  of  the  world, 
the  publicans  and  harlots,  though  perhaps  religious  men  might 
dispense  with  it.  Now,  I  find  in  our  Lord's  discourses,  that 
when  He  used  such  words  as  these,  "  Ye  serpents,  ye  gener- 
ation of  vipers,  how  shall  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell'?" 
He  was  speaking  to  religious  men,  to  doctors  of  the  law;  but 
that  when  He  went  among  publicans  and  sinners,  it  was  to 
preach  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Does  not  this  difference  show  that  our  minds  are  very 
strangely  at  variance  with  His  mind?  Ought  not  the  discov- 
ery to  make  us  think  and  to  make  us  tremble  ?  I  am  certain 
that  we  who  are  in  continual  contact  with  eternal  things  do 
require  to  remind  ourselves  what  danger  we  are  in  of  losing 
these  things.  Spiritual  pride  is  the  essential  nature  of  the 
Devil.  To  be  in  that,  is  to  be  in  the  deepest  hell.  Oh !  how 
little  are  all  outward  sensual  abominations  in  comparison  of 
this  !  And  surely  to  those  who  are  sunk  in  those  abomina- 
tions, no  message  will  avail  but  that  which  He  who  knew  what 
was  in  man  delivered.  Freedom  to  the  captives,  opening  of 
sight  to  them  that  are  blind,  a  power  near  them  which  is  migh- 
tier than  the  power  of  the  Devil,  a  Father  and  a  Son  and  a 
Spirit  who  are  willing  and  able  to  bring  them  out  of  darkness 
and  the  shadow  of  death — this  was  the  news  which  turned  the 
circumcised  and  the  uncircumcised,  the  children  of  God's  cov- 
enant, those  who  were  afar  off,  the  corrupt  men  and  women 
of  the  most  corrupt  period  in  history,  into  saints  and  martyrs. 
We  deliberately  proclaim  that  this  method  will  not  avail  for 
us  !  What  is  this  but  saying  that  we  have  not  faith  in  that 
which  the  Apostle  declares  to  be  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation ;  that  we  have  substituted  for  it  an  earthly  and  Tarta- 
16 


362  OUR  METHODS. 

rean  machinery  of  our  own  ?  May  God  preserve  us  from  such 
apostasy !  May  He  teach  us  again  by  mighty  evidence  that 
when  we  preach  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  we  invade  the  realm  of  Death  and  Eternal  Night, 
and  open  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  ! 


NOTE  ON  THE  ATHANASIAN  CREED. 


There  are  those  who  will  say,  "Your  explanation  of  the  word 
Eternal  in  the  New  Testament  may  be  the  true  one.  It  certainly 
accords  with  what  we  have  been  wont  to  think  its  peculiar  characteris- 
tics, better  than  the  one  which  is  given  in  popular  sermons.  It  even 
seems  to  throw  a  light  on  a  phrase  which  is  very  common  in  those 
sermons,  the  loss  of  the  soul,  which  ought  to  have  a  spiritual  sense,  one 
would  suppose,  and  which  continually  receives  a  very  carnal  and  mate- 
rial one.  And  it  is  at  least  possible,  that  if  Eternal  punishment  denotes 
in  Scripture,  Spiritual  punishment,  portions  of  its  language  which  seem 
to  contain  threatenings  of  outward  sufferings  may,  without  losing  their 
literal  force,  receive  a  new  character  by  being  referred  to  this  leading 
principle.  We  can  understand  this ;  we  may  be  glad  at  least  to  try 
your  method,  and  see  whether  the  words  of  Apostles  and  Evangelists 
will  bear  the  application  of  it.  But  can  you  accept  it  honestly  ?  Are 
you  not  tied  by  formularies  which  bind  you  to  another  maxim  1  Must 
not  these  be  thrown  aside  before  you  can  freely  and  fairly  give  a  force 
to  the  words  Eternal  or  Everlasting  Punishment,  Fire,  Death,  or  Damna- 
tion, which  they  do  not  convey  to  the  ears  and  eyes  of  ordinary  hearers 
and  readers  1" 

It  will  be  perceived  that  I  have  already  given  a  partial  answer  to  this 
question.  To  the  Articles  one  naturally  turns  for  definitions  of  words, 
for  assertions  of  doctrines.  In  the  Articles  we  find  no  definition  of  the 
word  Eternal  or  Everlasting.  They  are  not  merely  silent  on  the  doc- 
trine of  everlasting  punishment.  The  framers  of  them  have  refused  to 
pronounce  upon  it.  But  the  Articles  are  only  one  part  of  our  formu- 
laries. We  have  Prayers  which  we  are  expected  to  use  daily;  we 
have  Creeds  which  have  descended  to  us  from  the  early  ages — the  ages 
of  anathemas.     What  do  these  say  ? 

First  as  to  the  Prayers.  It  is  assumed  that  I  am  teaching  a  meaning 
of  the  word  Eternal,  which  the  ordinary  person,  the  peasant  or  woman, 


3G4  THE    ATHANASIAN  CREED. 

cannot  take  in,  which  can  only  be  understood  by  the  most  learned 
theologian  or  metaphysician.  I  utterly  deny  the  charge.  I  say  that  I 
have  been  forced  into  the  belief  of  an  Eternal  world  or  kingdom,  which 
is  about  us,  in  which  we  are  living,  wliich  has  nothing  to  do  with  time, 
by  prayers.  These  common  prayers  which  I  offer  up  with  peasants, 
and  women,  and  children,  have  taught  me  that  there  is  an  Eternal  Life 
which  is  emphatically  a  present  life,  (not  according  to  a  doctrine  which 
I  have  listened  to  lately  with  astonishment,  alike  for  its  logic  and  theo- 
logy— a  future  life  begun  in  the  present ;)  and  that  this  Eternal 
Life  consists  in  the  knowledge  of  God ;  and  that  the  loss  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  is  the  loss  of  it.  And  I  say  that  simple  people  do 
believe  in  this  life,  do  grow  in  the  perception  of  it  as  they  pray,  do  cast 
aside,  as  they  pray,  that  other  notion  which  is  so  plausible*  to  the 
senses  and  the  carnal  understandings,  and  which  doctors  find  it  so  hard 
to  escape.  Negatively,  then,  the  Prayers  define  nothing  about  Eternity, 
for  definitiefa  is  not  the  office  of  prayer.  Positively,  they  are  the  great 
means  of  leading  thousands  into  a  practical  apprehension  of  that  mean- 
ing of  Eternity,  which  I  have  deduced  from  the  New  Testament.  But 
-e  prayers  carry  us  further  still.  "We  have  no  prayers,  thank  God! 
for  the  dead  as  such.  IIow  can  we,  when  Christ  says  that  all  live  to 
God  ?  W«  have  no  masses  for  the  dead.  How  can  we  ?  The  sacri- 
fice is  complete;  we  cannot  make  it  more  perfect  than  it  is.  But 
prayer  does  break  down  the  barriers  between  the  visible  and  invisible 
world,  and  in  prayer  we  cannot  set  it  up  again,  however  in  our  theories 
we  may.  Christ's  sacrifice  compasses  the  whole  universe  j  we  cannot 
limit  the  extent  of  its  operation  by  measures  of  space  or  time.  When 
we  pray  for  "  all  men"  how  dare  we  limit  the  Spirit  who  is  teaching  us 
to  pray,  and  affirm  that  we  will  not  pray  for  any  but  those  who  are  in 
certain  conditions  with  which  we  are  acquainted  !  When  we  meet  to 
hold  communion  with  Him  who  has  given  Himself  for  the  world,  how 
dare  we  declare  for  whom  He  shall  or  shall  not  present  His  all-em- 
bracing sacrifice  !  I  Are  we  wiser  or  more  loving  than  He  is  ?  Do  we 
wish  better  things  for  mankind  than  He  does,  from  whom  all  our  good 
and  loving  thoughts  proceed  ? 

Next  as  to  the  Creeds.  The  negative  evidence  for  the  Apostles'  and 
the  Nicene — our  daily  popular  Creeds — is  decisive.  They  speak  of  a 
Judgment  of  quick  and  dead.  They  speak  of  Eternal  Life.  They  con- 
tain no  sentence  about  future  Punishment.    But  the  positive  evidence. 


THE  ATHANASIAN  CREED.  365 

from  their  effect  on  those  who  utter  them,  is  stronger  still.  They  are 
expressions  of  Trust  j  Trust  in  a  Father,  a  Son,  and  a  Spirit.  Augus- 
tine taught  them  to  the  Heathens  in  Africa,  as  witnesses  that  there  is 
a  God  of  Infinite  Charity,  utterly  unlike  the  gods  whom  they  wor- 
shipped. Our  missionaries,  I  hope,  use  them  for  the  same  purpose. 
All  who  say  them  with  their  hearts  feel  that  they  are  flying  to  God 
from  their  enemies — Death,  Hell,  the  Devil. 

But  the  Athanasian  Creed  ?  Does  not  that  settle  the  question  ?  I 
think  it  does.  There,  indeed,  we  find  no  more  definition  of  Eternity 
than  we  do  in  the  other  Creeds.  But  we  do  find  sentences  about 
Punishrefcnt  to  which  there  is  nothing  corresponding  elsewhere.  They 
are  such  sentences  as  I  affirm  could  not  have  been  introduced  and  could 
not  be  repeated  by  any  honest  or  Christian  man,  if  the  idea  of  Eternal 
Life,  as  consisting  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  of  Eternal  Death,  as 
consisting  in  the  absence  of  that  knowledge,  were  not  practically  the 
idea  of  the  old  time  as  well  as  of  our  own ;  however  in  our  formal 
writings  we  may  deny  it. 

Eleven  years  ago  I  expressed  what  were  then  my  opinions  on  this 
subject,  in  a  book  not  addressed  to  Unitarians.  I  said  that  I  could  not 
agree  with  Mr.  Coleridge  in  thinking  that  this  Creed  contradicted  the 
Nicene,  on  the  subject  of  the  subordination  of  the  Son  to  the  Father; 
that,  if  it  forced  me  to  pronounce  judgment  on  any  person,  I  would 
not  have  laid  myself  under  the  obligation  of  reading  it, — whatever 
Church  might  adopt  it, — because  I  should  be  violating  an  express  com- 
mand of  Christ ;  that  I  never  had  felt  myself  encouraged  or  tempted  by 
it  to  pass  sentence  on  those  who  differed  with  me  most  on  the  subject 
of  the  Trinity ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  I  had  felt  it  was  passing  sentence 
on  my  own  tendencies  "  to  confound  the  Persons,  and  to  divide  the 
Substance ;"  that  these  tendencies  in  me,  I  knew,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  intellectual  formulas,  but  with  moral  corruptions,  from  which 
many  who  are  called  heretics  may  be  freer  than  I  am ;  that  I  doubted 
whether  we  should  gain  in  Truth  or  Charity  by  casting  away  this 
Creed,  because  I  looked  upon  it  as  a  witness,  that  eternal  life  is  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  that  eternal  death  is  Atheism,  the  being  without 
Him.*  I  have  not  seen  any  cause  to  alter  these  opinions.  I  feel, 
indeed,  that  every  year  of  fresh  experience,  as  it  should  ground  us  more 
in  principles,  should  make  us  more  diffident  of  our  own  judgment  on 

*  "  Kingdom  of  Christ,  or  Hints  to  a  Quaker,"  vol.  ii.  p.  54S. 


366  THE    ATIIANASIAN  CREED. 

questions  of  expediency.  Though  the  Creed,  instead  of  tempting  us  to 
condemn  others,  has,  I  think,  often  overcome  our  inclination  to  condemn 
them — (for  the  more  tremendous  its  language,  the  less  we  can  dare  to 
bring  any  individual  within  the  scope  of  it;)  though  some  sentence 
it,  those  especially  concerning  "  the  taking  of  the  Manhood  into  God, 
the  reasonable  soul  and  flesh,  the  persons,  and  substance,*9  have  thrown 
a  clear  broad  light  into  dark  p  s  of  my  mind,  and  I  doubt  not, 

have  taught  my  brethren  more;  yet,  if  it  does  cause  any  of  those  for 
whom  Christ  died  to  stumble,  if  it  hinders  any  from  entering  into  the 

Btery  of  God's  love,  I  hope  He  will  not  suffer  us  to  retain  it.  For 
that  which  is  meant  as  a  witness  of  Him,  must  be  given  up.  like  the 
brazen  serpent,  if  it  ceases  to  be  so,  or  is  made  an  instrument  of  turning 
men's  eyes  from  Him.  Still  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  reasons 
generally  urged  for  abandoning  it  are  not  charitable,  and  that  submis- 
sion to  them  will  not  conduce  to  charity.  1  find  persons  objecting, 
first,  that  the  basis  of  our  fellowship  should  not  be  laid  in  Theology,  in 
principles  concerning  the  nature  of  God.  Secondly,  that  Eternal  Pun- 
ishiiKiit   or   Heath   minj  be  denoun*  kinst   those  who  hold  certain 

opinions  on  certain  subjects, — probably  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity, — 
but  should  not  be  denouiK  linst  those  who  do  not  think  "thus"  or 

'•  thus  "  concerning  it. 

On  the  firsl   proposition   I  have  spoken  much  in  these   Essays,  and 
have  endeavored  to  show  :  -  of  fellowship  but  a  Theological 

— any  basis  of  human  consciousness,  or  of  mere  materialism, — m 
be  narrow  and  e.\dusi\  on  which  an  edifice  of  superstition  will 

certainly  be  reared,  one  which  must  be  protected  by  persecution.  On 
the  second  point  I  would  observe,  that  if  the  Creed  had  meant  that  the 
not  holding  certain  intellectual  notions  concerning  the  Trinity  involved 
the  penalty  of  everlasting  death,  it  would  consign  to  destruction,  not 
heretics. — extreme  or  moderate. — but  every  ]>casant,  every  child,  nearly 
every  woman  in  every  congregation  in  which  it  is  read,  seeing  that 

-e  (thank  God!)  have  formed  no  such  intellectual  conceptions,  that 
the  majority  are  not  capable  of  forming  them.  And  the  few  persons  it 
would  count  worthy  of  eternal  life,  are  a  set  of  schoolmen,  the  best  of 
whom  pray  everv  day  and  hour  that  they  may  become  as  little  chil- 
dren, and  have  the  faith  which  those  have  who  do  not  look  upon  the 

ject  from  a  logical  point  of  view  at  all.  Lastly,  it  would  directly 
contradict  its  own  most  solemn  assertions.     If  we  could  comprehend 


THE  ATHANASIAN  CREED.  367 

this  truth  in  an  intellectual  statement,  the  Father  would  not  be  incom- 
prehensible, the  Son  incomprehensible,  the  Holy  Ghost  incomprehen- 
sible. But  since  there  is  no  alternative  between  this  utterly  monstrous 
imagination,  and  that  which  supposes  the  Creed  to  affirm  the  knowledge 
of  God  and  eternal  life  to  be  the  same ;  and  therefore  the  denial, — not 
in  the  letter,  but  in  the  spirit, — not  intellectually  and  outwardly,  but 
morally  and  inwardly, — of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  to  be  eternal 
death, — I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  with  all  its  fierce  language,  it  has 
a  gentler  heart  than  some  of  those  who  get  themselves  credit  for  Tole- 
ration, by  wishing  the  Church  well  rid  of  it.  They  leave  us  free  to 
judge  occasionally,  to  assume  a  portion  of  God's  authority,  only  pro- 
testing against  any  excessive  intrusion  into  it.  The  Creed  obliges  us  to 
give  such  a  meaning  to  eternal  life, — or  rather  to  adhere  so  closely  to 
our  Lord's  explanation  of  it, — that  we  have  no  power  of  saying,  in  any 
case,  who  has  lost  it,  or  incurred  the  state  which  is  opposite  to  it. 

If  I  am  asked  whether  the  writer  did  not  suppose  that  he  had  this 
power,  I  answer — When  you  tell  me  who  the  writer  was,  I  may  possibly, 
though  probably  not  even  then,  be  able  to  make  some  guess  whether  he 
supposed  it  or  not*.  At  present,  I  am  quite  in  the  dark  about  him  and 
his  motives.  If  I  adopt  the  theory,  which  is  as  reasonable  as  any  other, 
that  he  lived  in  the  time  of  the  Vandal  persecution,  I  think  it  is  very 
likely,  that  along  with  a  much  deepened  conviction  of  the  worth  of  the 
principle  for  which  he  was  suffering,  he  had  also  a  mixture  of  earthly 
passion  and  fierceness,  and  that  he  was  tempted  to  show  his  opponents, 
or  those  who  were  apostatizing,  that  there  were  more  terrible  penalties 
than  those  of  scourging  the  back  or  cutting  out  the  tongue.  In  that 
case,  I  should  say  I  was  giving  up  that  part  of  his  animus  which  he 
would  wish  me  to  give  up ;  that  part  which  was  not  of  God,  and  could 
not  be  meant  to  abide  ;  and  was  clinging  to  that  which  made  his  other 
words  true  and  consistent  with  themselves,  when  I  interpreted  his 
Creed  in  conformity  with  our  Lord's  sentence.  I  should  not  be  imi- 
tating the  treatment  which  Mr.  Ward  (in  his  Ideal  of  the  Church) 
applied  to  our  articles,  (I  have  no  doubt  he  is  one  of  those  on  whom 
Romanism  has  conferred  a  benefit  by  making  him  at  least  respectful  to 
the  formularies  by  which  he  is  bound,)  when  he  maintained  that  a  non- 
natural  sense  might  be  put  on  them,  because  the  compilers  of  them 
meant  to  cheat  Catholics,  and  Catholics  might  pay  them  in  their  own 


368  THE    ATE  AN  ASIAN    CREED. 

coin.  I  should  apply  just  the  opposite  rule.  If  I  found  a  general  scope 
of  meaning  which  was  important  and  precious,  and  which  belonged  to 
all  times,  I  should  not  sacrifice  that  for  the  sake  of  a  portion  which 
belonged  to  the  circumstances  and  feelings  of  a  particular  time  or  a  par- 
ticular man.  To  use  Mr.  Canning's  celebrated  simile,  I  should  not 
follow  the  example  of  those  worshippers  of  the  Sun,  who  chose  the 
moment  of  an  eclipse  to  come  forth  with  their  hymns  and  their  symbols. 
This  rule  is  necessary,  I  suspect,  that  we  may  do  justice  to  the 
Church  of  the  Fathers  generally,  and  prove  our  reverence  for  it.  I 
cannot  honor  that  age  too  much,  for  its  earnestness  in  asserting  and 
defending  theological  principles.  I  believe  no  other  age  has  had  pre- 
cisely the  same  task  committed  to  it.  Of  course,  I  have  most  sympathy 
with  those  (like  him  to  whom  this  creed  is  erroneously  attributed)  who 
fought  at  fearful  odds  for  that  which  was  dear  to  them — who  exposed 
themselves  to  imperial,  episcopal,  and  popular  mdignation,  for  the  sake 
of  it.    It  is  not  only  more  pleasant  to  contemplate  them  than  the  pros- 

>us  men, — and  them  in  their  adversity  than  when  they  were  threat- 
ening and  excommunicating  others;  but  their  weak  time  was  certainly 
the  time  in  which  all  their  chief  work  was  done.  -.  1  cannot 

that  their  anathemas  were  indications  of  a  cniel  spirit;   that  thi 
did  not  show,  like  their  endurance  of  persecution,  how  much  they  were 
in  earnest,  and  how  precious  the  truths  which  they  had  realised  were 

hem  ;  or  that  the  distinctions  which  were  the  excuses  for  them  were 
not  very  valuable  for  Theology  and  for  Humanity.  'J'hrre,  1  believe, 
they  were  wiser  than  we  are,  unless  we  are  willing  to  profit  by  their 

lorn.  But  there  are  points  on  which  I  know  we  ought  to  be  wiser 
than  they  were.  They  could  not  foresee  how  God  would  govern  His 
world,  what  methods  He  would  see  fit  to  use  for  bringing  His  truth  to 
light.     We  ought  to  see  that  doubts,  que  partial  apprehensi- 

denials  of  one  principle  for  the  sake  of  affirming  another,  have  bet 
through  His  gracious  discipline,  means  of  elucidating  that  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  dark.  Would  the  sentence  of  the  Nicene  Council 
have  sufficed  to  illustrate  the  faith  of  Athanasius?  Was  not  a  century 
of  strife  in  the  Empire, — three  centuries  of  Arianism  among  the  Bar- 
barians,— needful  for  that  purpose?  And  if  I  find  this  to  be  so.  and 
find  also  much  horrible  sin  among  the  orthodox  mixed  with  their  excel- 
lencies, many  virtues  among  the  heretics  mixed  with  their  denials  and 
rtradictions,  I  am  bound  bo  believe  (J.».i  was  using  both.     I  dare  not 


THE  ATHANASIAN  CREED.  369 

deny  History  any  more  than  the  Theological  truth,  which,  I  believe 
History  has  expounded.  That  truth  will  suffer  if  I  do.  How  was  the 
noble  heart  of  Dante  crushed  by  the  thought  that  his  dear  master,  and 
all  the  men  whom  he  reverenced  in  the  old  world,  were  outcasts  for 
not  believing  in  the  Trinity !  That  thought  evidently  shook  his  faith 
in  the  Trinity.  And  it  would  shake  mine,  because  it  would  lead  me  to 
suppose,  that  Truth  only  became  true  when  Christ  appeared,  instead  of 
being  revealed  by  Him  for  all  ages  past  and  to  come ;  so  that,  whoever 
walked  in  the  light  then,  whoever  walks  in  it  now,  seeking  glory  and 
immortality,  desirous  to  be  true,  has  glimpses  of  it,  and  will  have  the 
fruition  of  it,  which  is  Life  Eternal. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  possible  animus  of  the  writer  of  this  Creed ; 
but  I  must  repeat  that  I  know  nothing  of  him,  and  therefore  my  guesses 
are  good  for  very  little.  The  animus  imponentis  concerns  us,  as  all 
casuists  admit,  much  more ;  and  of  that  we  have  no  right  to  pretend 
ignorance.  Our  Church  has  given  us  great  helps  for  understanding 
what  her  meaning  is,  and  what  spirit  she  wishes  us  to  be  of.  So  long 
as  I  am  commanded  to  repeat  her  prayers,  no  one  shall  compel  me  to 
put  a  construction  upon  this  formulary  which  contradicts  them,  and 
makes  me  consciously  false  in  the  use  of  them.  And  I  will  add,  once 
for  all,  in  reference  to  those  who  wish  to  bind  us  by  the  current  and 
floating  opinions  of  this  age  on  the  topics  I  have  discussed  in  these 
Essays — I  hold  to  that  which  I  have  confessed  already ;  I  hold  to  the 
prayers  in  which  I  find  that  confession  made  living  and  effectual  for  me 
and  for  all  my  brethren.  If  you  say  my  faith  is  not  distinct  enough, 
bring  forth  your  substitute  for  it.  Do  not  talk  about  a  perfect  Atone- 
ment, or  a  divine  Satisfaction,  or  an  Eternal  Death ;  these  I  believe  in 
as  much  as  you  can  do.  Put  forth  distinctly  before  your  own  con- 
sciences, and  before  the  conscience  of  England,  the  meaning  which  you 
attach  to  these  words.  See  whether  what  you  intend  is  not  either  that 
assertion  of  God's  infinite  Charity,  which  is  contained  in  St.  John's 
express  words,  in  the  whole  Bible,  in  our  forms,  or  something  so 
flagrantly  in  contradiction  with  that,  as  to  make  the  duty  of  rejecting 
it,  and  protesting  against  it,  one  from  which  no  Churchman  and  no 
man  ought  to  shrink. 

THE    END. 

UNI  i/r&»,_. 


J.  S.  REDFIELD, 

110  AND  112  NASSAU  STREET,  NEW  YORK, 

HAS  JUST  PUBLISHED: 


EPISODES  OF  INSECT  LIFE. 

By  Acheta  Domestica.     In  Three  Series  :  I.  Insects  of  Spring.- 
II.  Insects  of  Summer. —  III.    Insects  of  Autumn.     Beautifully 
illustrated.     Crown  8vo.,  cloth,  gilt,  price  $2.00  each.     The  same 
beautifully  colored  after  nature,  extra  gilt,  $4.00  each. 

"  A  book  elegant  enough  for  the  centre  table,  witty  enough  for  after  dinner,  and  wise 
enough  for  the  study  and  the  school-room.  One  of  the  beautiful  lessons  of  this  work  is 
the  kindly  view  it  takes  of  nature.  Nothing  is  made  in  vain  not  only,  but  nothing  in 
made  ugly  or  repulsive.  A  charm  is  thrown  around  every  object,  and  life  suffused 
through  all,  suggestive  of  the  Creator's  goodness  and  wisdom." — N.  Y.  Evangelist. 

"  Moths,  glow-worms,  lady-birds,  May-flies,  bees,  and  a  variety  of  other  inhabitant*  of 
>he  insect  world,  are  descanted  upon  in  a  pleasing  style,  combining  scientific  information 
with  romance,  in  a  manner  peculiarly  attractive." — Commercial  Advertiser. 

"  The  book  includes  solid  instruction  as  well  as  genial  and  captivating  mirth.  The 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  writer  is  thoroughly  reliable." — Examiner 


MEN  AND   WOMEN  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

By  Arse.ne  Houssate,  with  beautifully  Engraved  Portraits  of 
Louis  XV.,  and  Madame  de  Pompadour.  Two  volume  12mo. 
450  pages  each,  extra  superfine  paper,  price  $2.50. 

Contents.— Dufresny,  Fontenelle,  Marivaux,  Piron,  The  Abbe  Prevost,  Gentil-Bernard, 
Florian,  Boufflers,  Diderot,  Gretry,  Riverol,  Louis  XV.,  Greuze,  Boucher,  The  Van- 
loos,  Lantara,  Watteau,  La  Motte,  Dehle,  Abbe  Trublet,  Buffon,  Dorat,  Cardinal  de 
Bernis,  Crebillon  the  Gay,  Marie  Antoinette,  Made,  de  Pompadour,  Vade,  Mile.  Ca- 
rnargo,  Mile.  Clairon,  Mad.  de  la  Popeliniere,  Sophie  Arnould,  Crgbillon  the  Tragic, 
Mile.  Guimard,  Three  Pages  in  the  Life  of  Dancourt,  A  Promenade  in  the  Palais-Royal, 
the  Chevalier  de  la  Clos. 

"  A  more  fascinating  book  than  this  rarely  issues  from  the  teeming  press.  FascinR- 
ring  in  its  subject ;  fascinating  in  its  style ;  fascinating  in  its  power  to  lead  the  reader  into 
castle-building  of  the  most  gorgeous  and  bewitching  description." — Courier  fyEnquwer. 
"This  is  a  most  welcome  book,  full  of  information  and  amusement,  in  the  form  of 
memoirs,  comments,  and  anecdotes.  It  has  the  style  of  light  literature,  with  the  use- 
fulness Df  the  gravest.  It  should  be  in  every  library,  and  the  hands  of  every  reader. 
Boston  Commonwealth. 

"A  Book  of  Books.— Two  deliciously  spicy  volumes,  that  are  a  perfect  bonne  bnucttA 
for  in  epicure  in  reading." — Home  Journal. 


REDFIELD  S    NEW    AND    POPULAR    PUBLICATION*. 


PHILOSOPHERS  AND  ACTRESSES 

By  Arsene  Hocssate.     With   beautifully-engraved  Portraits  oi 
Voltaire  and  Mad.  Parabere.     Two  vols.,  12mo,  price  $2.50. 

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or  needful  slumbers,  by  the  entrancing  influence  of  Us  pages.  One  of  the  most  desirw 
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dom." —  Yankee  Blade. 

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Indeed,  the  vividness  of  the  book  is  extraordinary.  The  scenes  and  d«*cnptionu  a/a 
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"  The  works  of  the  present  writer  are  the  only  ones  the  spirit  of  whose  rhetoric  does 
Justice  to  those  times,  and  in  fascination  of  description  and  style  equal  the  fuochiation* 
they  descant  upon." — New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin. 

"The  author  is  a  brilliant  writer,  and  serves  up  his  sketches  in  a  sparkling  manner  * 
Christian  Freeman. 


^H 


ANCIENT  EGYPT  UNDER  THE  PHARAOHS. 
By  John  Kendrick,  M.  A.     In  2  vols.,  12mo,  price  $2.50. 

"No  work  has  heretofore  appeared  suited  to  the  wants  of  the  historical  student, 
which  combined  the  labors  of  artists,  travellers,  Interpreter*  and  critics,  during  the 
ioda  from  the  earliest  records  of  the  monarchy  to  its  final  absorption  in  the  empiro 
of  Alexander.     This  work  supplies  this  deficiency." — Olive  Branch. 

"  Not  only  the  geography  and  political  history  of  Egypt  under  the  Pharaohs  aro 
given,  but  we  are  lurnished  with  a  minute  account  of  the  domestic  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  the  inhabitants,  their  auiguage,  laws,  science,  religion,  agriculture,  navigation 
and  commerce.'" — Commercial  Advertiser. 

••These  volumes  present  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  results  of  the  combined  labors 
of  travellers,  artists,  am:  -g,  which  have  effected  so  much  during  the 

present  century  toward  the  development  of  Egyptian  archaeology  and  hiBtory." — Jour- 
nal of  Commerce. 

"  The  descriptions  are  very  vivid  and  one  wanders,  delighted  with  the  author,  through 
the  land  of  Egypt,  fathering  at  every  step,  new  phases  of  her  wondrous  history,  and 
ends  with  a  more  ii:t  lligent  knowledge  than  he  ever  before  had,  of  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs." — American  Spectator. 


COMPARATIVE  PHYSIOGNOMY; 

Or  Resemblances  between  Men  and  Animals.  By  J.  W.  Redfielu, 
M.  D.  In  one  vol.,  8vo,  with  several  hundred  illustrations, 
price,  $2.00. 

"  Dr.  Redfield  has  produced  a  very  curious,  amusing,  and  instructive  book,  curiou» 
In  its  originality  and  illustrations,  amusing  in  the  comparisons  and  analyses,  and  in. 
structive  because  it  contains  very  much  useful  information  on  a  too  much  neglected 
subject.    It  will  be  eagerly  read  and  quickly  appreciated." — National  Mgis. 

"The  whole  work  exhibits  a  good  deal  of  scientific  research,  intelligent  observation, 
and  ingenuity." — Daily  Union. 

*•  Highly  entertaining  even  to  those  who  have  little  time  to  study  the  science."-— 
Detroit  Daily  Advertiser. 

•■  This  is  a  remarkable  volume  and  will  be  read  by  two  classes,  those  who  study  for 
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character,  we  commend  it  to  our  readers." — Albany  Express. 

"It  is  overflowing  with  wit,  humor,  and  originality,  and  profusely  illustrated.  1  he 
whole  work  is  distinguished  by  vast  research  and  knowledge." — Knickerbocker 

"  The  plan  is  a  novel  one ;  the  proofs  ttriking,  and  must  challenge  the  attention  of  th« 
curious." — Daily  Advertiser 


redfield's  new  and  popular  publications. 


NOTES  AND  EMENDATIONS  OF  SHAKESPEARE. 

Notes  and  Emendations  tc  the  Text  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  from 
the  Early  Manuscript  Corrections  in  a  copy  of  the  folio  of  1 632, 
in  the  possession  of  John  Payne  Collier,  Esq.,  F.S.A.  Third 
edition,  with  a  fac-simile  of  the  Manuscript  Corrections.  1  vol, 
12mo,  cloth,  $1  50. 

"It  is  not  for  a  moment  to  bo  doubted,  we  think,  that  in  this  volume  a  contribution 
t*6  been  made  to  the  clearness  and  accuracy  of  Shakespeare's  text,  by  far  the  most  im 
portant  of  any  offered  or  attempted  since  Shakespeare  lived  and  wrote." — Lond.  Exam 

"  The  corrections  which  Mr.  Collier  has  here  given  to  the  world  are,  we  venture  to 
think,  of  more  value  than  the  labors  of  nearly  all  the  critics  on  Shakespeare's  text  put 
together." — London  Literary  Gazette. 

"  It  is  a  rare  gem  in  the  history  of  literature,  and  can  not  fail  to  command  the  atten- 
tion of  all  the  amateurs  of  the  writings  of  the  immortal  dramatic  poet." — Ch'ston  Cour 

"  It  is  a  book  absolutely  indispensable  to  every  admirer  of  Shakespeare  who  wishes 
to  read  him  understanding^." — Louisville  Courier. 

"  It  i3  clear  from  internal  evidence,  that  for  the  most  part  they  are  genuine  restora- 
tions of  the  original  plays.     They  carry  conviction  with  them." — Home  Journal. 

"  This  volume  is  an  almost  indispensable  companion  to  any  of  the  editions  of 
Shakespeare,  so  numerous  and  often  important  are  many  of  the  corrections."—  Register, 
Philadelphia. 


c^S^ 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  CRUSADES. 

By  Joseph  Fran£ois  Michaud.     Translated  by  W.  Robson,  3  vols. 
12mo.,  maps,  $3  75. 

"  It  is  comprehensive  and  accurate  in  the  detail  of  facts,  methodical  and  lucid  in  ar- 
rangement, with  a  lively  and  flowing  narrative." — Journal  of  Commerce. 

"  We  need  not  say  that  the  work  of  Michaud  has  superseded  all  other  histories 
of  the  Crusades.  This  history  has  long  been  the  standard  work  with  all  who  could 
read  it  in  its  original  language.  Another  work  on  the  same  subject  is  as  improbable 
as  a  new  history  of  the  '  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.'  " — Salem  Freeman. 

"  The  most  faithful  and  masterly  history  ever  written  of  the  wild  wars  for  the  Holy 
Land." — Philadelphia  American  Courier. 

"  The  ability,  diligence,  and  faithfulness,  with  which  Michaud  has  executed  his 
great  task,  are  undisputed  ;  and  it  is  to  his  well-filled  volumes  that  the  historical  stu- 
dent must  now  resort  for  copious  and  authentic  facts,  and  luminous  views  respecting 
this  most  romantic  and  wonderful  period  in  the  annals  of  the  Old  World." — Boston 
Daily  Courier. 


MARMADVKE  WYVIL. 

An  Historical  Romance  of  1^651,  by  Henry  W.  Herbert,  author 
of  the  "  Cavaliers  of  England,"  &c,  &c.  Fourteenth  Edition. 
Revised  and  Corrected. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  best  works  of  the  kind  we  have  ever  read — full  of  thrilling  inci- 
dents and  adventures  in  the  stirring  times  of  Cromwell,  and  in  that  style  which  has 
made  the  works  of  Mr.  Herbert  so  popular." — Christian  Freeman,  Boston, 

m  The  work  is  distinguished  by  the  same  historical  knowledge,  thrilling  incident,  and 
pictorial  beauty  of'style,  which  havt  characterized  all  Mr.  Herbert's  fictions  and  imparted 
to  them  such  a  bewitching  interest." — Yankee  Blade. 

"  The  author  out  of  a  simple  plot  and  very  few  characters,  has  constructed  a  novel 
of  deep  interest  and  of  considerable  historical  value.  It  will  be  found  well  worth 
reading  "—National  /&gis,  Worcester. 


KEDFIELDS    NEW    AND    POPULAR    PUBLICATIONS. 

MOORE'S  LIFE  OF  SHERIDAN. 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan, 
by  Thomas  Moore,  with  Portrait  after  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 
"Two  vols.,  12mo,  cloth,  $2.00. 

"One  of  the  most  brilliant  biographies  in  English  literature.  It  is  the  life  of  n  wit 
written  by  a  wit.  and  few  of  Tom  Moore's  most  sparkling  poems  are  more  brilliant  Hnd 
'ascinaUng  than  this  biography." — Boston  Transcript. 

•'  This  is  at  once  a  most  valuable  biography  of  the  most  celebrated  wit  of  the  times. 
nd  one  of  the  most  entertaining  works  of  its  gifted  author." — Springfield  Republimn. 

"  The  Life  of  Sheridan,  the  wit,  contains  as  much  food  for  serious  thought  as  the 
best  sermon  that  was  ever  penned." — Arthur's  Home  Gazette, 

"The  sketch  of  such  a  character  and  career  as  Sheridan's  by  sue  \and  as  Moore's, 
can  never  cease  to  be  attractive." — N.  Y.  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"The  work  is  instructive  and  full  of  interest." — Christian  Intelligencer, 

"  It  is  a  gem  of  biography  ;  full  of  incident,  elegantly  written,  warmly  appreciative, 
and  on  the  whole  candid  and  just.  Sheridan  was  a  rare  and  wonderful  genius,  and  has 
in  this  work  justice  done  to  his  surpassing  merits."—  N.  Y.  Evangelist. 


*$*> 


BARRINC TON'S  S K E TCHE8. 

Personal  Sketches  of  his  own  Time,  by  Sir  Johah  Bar  ri  no  ton, 
Judge  (  f  the  High  Court  of  Admiralty  in  Ireland,  with  Illustra- 
tions by  Darlev.      Third  Edition,  12mo,  cloth,  $1  25. 

"  A  more  entertaining  book  than  this  ;-  not  often  thrown  in  our  way.  His  sketches 
of  character  are  inimitable  :  and  many  of  the  prominent  men  of  his  time  are  hit  otl  iu 
the  mos-t  striking  and  graceful  outline." — Albany  Argus. 

'■  II.-  vraa  a  very  shrewd  obeerrrr  and  eccentric  writer,  and  his  narrative  of  his  owu 
life,  and  sketches  of  society  in  Ireland  during  his  times,  arc  exceedingly  humorous  and 
rig."— N.  Y.  Commcr  er. 

"  It  ks>  which  are  conceived  and  written  in  so  hearty  a  view,  and 

brings  before  the  reader  so  many  palpable  and  amusing  characters,  that  the  entertain 
mi nt  and  information  are  equally  balanced."—  Bottnn  Transcript. 

"  Tbis  is  one  of  the  most  entei  books  of  the  season." — N.  Y.  Recorder. 

"  It  portrays  in  life-like  colors  the  characters  and  daily  habits  of  nearly  all  the  Eng 
lish  and  lebritirs  of  that  period."—  N.  Y.  Courier  and  Enquirer. 


JOMINPS  CAMPAIGN  OF  WATERLOO. 

The  Political  and  Military  History  of  the  Campaign  of  "Waterloo 
from  the  French  of  Gen.  Baron  Jomini,  by  Lieut.  S  V.  Bknet 
U.  S.  Ordnance,  with  a  Map,  12mo,  cloth,  75  cents. 

"  Of  great  value,  both  for  its  historical  merit  and  its  acknowledged  impartiality."— 
Christian  Freeman,  Boston. 

"  It  has  long  been  retarded  in  Europe  as  a  work  of  more  than  ordinary  merit,  while 
to  military  men  his  review  of  the  tactics  and  manoeuvres  of  the  French  Emperor  dur- 
ing the  few  days  which  preceded  his  final  and  most  disastrous  defeat,  is  considered  aa 
instructive,  as  it  is  inten  sting."—  Arthur's  Home  Gazette. 

"  It  is  a  standard  authority  and  illustrates  a  subject  of  permanent  interest.  Wirt, 
military  students,  and  historical  inquirers,  it  will  be  a  favorite  reference,  and  for  th#, 
general  reader  it  p<  irreat  value  and  interest." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  It  throws  much  light  on  often  mooted  points  respecting  Napoleon's  military  und 
political  genius.     The  translation  is  one  of  much  vigor." — Boston  Commonwealth. 

"It  supplies  an  important  chapter  in  the  most  interesting  and  eventful  periuc'  of  Na 
poleon's  military  career." — Savannah  Daily  News. 

m  It  ia  ably  written  and  skilfully  translated." — Yankte  Blade. 


redfield's  new  and  popular  publications. 

MACAULATS  SPEECHES. 

Speeches  by  the  Right  Hon.  T.  B.  Macaulat,  M.  P.,  Author  of 
M  The  History  of  England,"  "  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,"  &c,  dec. 
Two  vols.,  12mo,  price  $2.00. 

"  It  is  hard  to  say  whether  hie  poetry,  his  speeches  in  parliament,  or  his  brilliant 
essays,  are  the  most  charming ;  each  has  raised  him  to  very  great  eminence,  and  would 
be  sufficient  to  constitute  the  reputation  of  any  ordinary  man." — Sir  Archibald  Alison 

"  It  may  be  said  that  Great  Britain  has  produced  no  statesman  since  Burke,  who  has 
united  in  so  eminenta  degree  as  Macaulay  the  lofty  and  cultivated  genius,  the  eloquent 
orator,  and  the  sagacious  and  far-reaching  politician." — Albany  Argus. 

"  We  do  not  know  of  any  living  English  orator,  whose  eloquence  comes  so  near  the 
ancient  ideal — close,  rapid,  powerful,  practical  reasoning,  animated  by  an  intense  earn 
e6tne88  of  feeling." — Courier  <V  Enquirer. 

"  Mr.  Macaulay  has  lately  acquired  as  great  a  reputation  as  an  orator,  as  he  had  for- 
merly won  as  an  essayist  and  historian.  He  takes  in  his  speeches  the  same  wide  and 
comprehensive  grasp  of  his  subject  that  he  does  in  his  essays,  and  treats  it  in  the  samo 
elegant  style." — Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin. 

"  The  same  elaborate  finish,  sparkling  antithesis,  full  sweep  and  copious  flow  of 
thought,  and  transparency  of  style,  which  made  his  essays  so  attractive,  are  found  in 
his  speeches.  They  are  so  perspicuous,  so  brilliantly  studded  with  ornament  and  illus- 
tration, and  so  resistless  in  their  current,  that  they  appear  at  the  time  to  be  the  wisest 
and  greatest  of  human  compositions," — New  York  Evangelist. 


Mr 


TRENCH  ON  PROVERBS. 

On  the  Lessons  in  Proverbs,  by  Richard  Chenevix  Trench,  R.  D., 

Professor  of  Divinity  in  King's  College,  London,  Author  of  the 
*«  Study  of  Words."     12mo,  cloth,  50  cents. 

"Another  charming  book  by  the  author  of  the  "  Study  of  Words,"  on  a  subject  which 
is  so  ingeniously  treated,  that  we  wonder  no  one  has  treated  it  before." — Yankee  Blade. 

•'  It  is  a  book  at  once  profoundly  instructive,  and  at  the  same  time  deprived  of  all 
approach  to  dryness,  by  the  charming  manner  in  which  the  subject  is  treated."— Ar 
thur's  Home  Gazette. 

"  It  is  a  wide  field,  and  one  which  the  author  has  well  cultivated,  adding  not  only  to 
his  own  reputation,  but  a  valuable  work  to  our  literature."— Albany  Evening  Transcript. 

"  The  work  shows  an  acute  perception,  a  genial  appreciation  of  wit,  and  great  re- 
search. It  is  a  very  rare  and  agreeable  production,  which  may  be  read  with  profit  and 
delight."— New  York  Evangelist. 

"  The  style  of  the  author  is  terse  and  vigorous — almost  a  model  in  its  kind."— Port. 
land  Eclectic 


THE  LION  SKIN 
And  the  Lover  Hunt;  by  Charles  de  Bernard.     12mo,  $1.00. 

«'  It  is  not  often  the  novel-reader  can  find  on  his  bookseller's  shelf  a  publication  so  full 
of  incidents  and  good  humor,  and  at  the  same  time  so  provocative  of  honest  thought." 
— National  (Worcester,  Mass.)  Mgis. 

"  It  is  full  of  incidents  ;  and  the  reader  becomes  so  interested  in  the  principal  person- 
ages in  the  work,  that  he  is  unwilling  to  lay  the  book  down  until  he  has  learned  theii 
whole  history." — Boston  Olive  Branch. 

"  It  is  refreshing  to  meet  occasionally  with  a  well-published  story  which  is  written  for 
a  story,  and  for  nothing  else— which  is  not  tipped  with  the  snapper  of  a  moral,  oi 
loaded  in  the  handle  with  a  pound  of  philanthropy,  or  an  equal  quantity  of  leaden  phi 
losophy." — Springfield  Republican. 


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LIFE  IN  THE  MISSION. 

Life  in  the  Mission,  the  Camp,  and  the  Zenana.     By  Mrs.  Colin 
Mackenzie.    2  vols.,  12mo.    Cloth.    $2  00. 

"  It  is  enlivened  with  countless  pleasant  anecdotes,  and  altogether  is  one  of  the  most 
entertaining  and  valuable  works  of  the  kind  that  we  have  met  with  for  many  a  day." — 
Boston  Traveller. 

'  A  more  charming  production  has  not  Issued  from  the  press  for  years,  than  this  jour- 
nal of  Mrs.  U  -Arthur's  Home  Gazette. 

"  She  also  gives  us  a  clearer  insight  into  the  manners,  positionajfclimate,  and  way  of 
life  in  general,  in  that  distant  land,  than  wo  have  been  uble  to  obtain  from  any  other 
work." — Christian  Herald. 

"  Her  observations  illustrative  of  the  religious  state  of  things,  and  of  the  progress  of 
Missions  in  the  East,  will  he  found  specially  valuable.  It  is  OB  the  whole  a  fascinating 
work,  and  withal  Is  fitted  to  do  good." — Puritan  Recorder. 

'•  She  was  familiarly  acquainted  with  some  of  the  excellent  laborers  6ent  out  by  the 
Presbyterian  Hoard  of  Foreign  Missions,  of  whom  she  speaks  in  the  most  favorable 
terms.     The  work  is  instructive  ami  very  readable." — Presbyterian. 


**. 


WESTERN  CHARACTERS. 

Western  Characters;  bein^  Type9  of  Border  Life  in  the  Western 
State-  .1.  L.  MM  'onnkl.     Author  of  •♦  Talbot  and  Vernon," 

'•The   (llrnns,"  c\  :.      With    Six.    Illustrations  by   Darley. 

12mo.     Cloth.     $1  25. 

"  Ten  different  clas-  ied  in  this  admirable  book,  and  written  by  the  hand 

of  a  master.     The  author  is  an  expert  limner,  and  Utah  i r traits  striking." — Buf- 

falo Express. 

has  Parley'*  pencil  been  more  effectively  used     The  writer  and  sketcher 
have  made  a  unique  and  m  " — Boston  Transcript, 

"  When  we  say  that  the  book  before  in  [a  calm  in  style  as  it  is  forcible  in  matter,  we 
hav.  i  sufficie.  >od  qua  re  the  attention  of  the  reader,  who 

wo-  nd  his  s.  es  and  secure  himself  a  due  degree  of  amusement,  without 

— what  is  not  ui  n  in  be  .  shock  to  his  taste,  or  insult  to 

Ida  judgment  I'then  in  the  book  illustrations  of  the  day.     A 

special  paragraph  should  be  given  to  the  illustrations  by  D.uiey." — Literary  World. 


•* 


A  THANKSGIVING  STORY. 

Chanticleer:  A  Story  of  the  Peabody  Family.  By  CoaHKLfUl 
Mathews.  With  Illustrations  by  Darley,  Walcutt,  and  Dallas. 
12mo.     75  cents. 

'•Its  success  is  already  a  fixed    fact  in  our  literature.      'Chanticleer'  is  one  of  those 
simple  and  interesting  tales  which,  like  the  '  Vicar  of  Waketield'  and  Zchokke's  'Poor 
tor,"  win  their  way  to  the  leader's  heart  and  dwell  there.    It  is  full  of  sunshine:  a 
rty  and  a  genial  book." — New  York  Daily  Times. 
"  '  Chanticleer*  is  scarcely  inferior  !n  a  literary  point  of  view  to  any  of  the  Christmas 
stories  of  Charles  Dickens,  and  is  more  interesting  to  Americans  because  of  its  allusions 
ustoms  of  this  country." — N.  Y.  <  rertiser. 

"'  Chanticleer'  has  won  the  public  heart,  both  by  the  felicity  of  its  subject,  and  the 
grace,  wit,  ai  I,  displayed  in  its  execution." — Southern  Literary  Gazette. 

"It  posscssesliterary  merit  of  the  highest  order,  and  will  live  in  the  affection- of  all 
readers  of  good  taste  and  good  morals,  not  only  while  Thanksgiving  dinners  are  rem<  in 
bered,  but  while  genius  is  appreciated."— Morning  News,  Savannah. 


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THE  BLACKWATER  CHRONICLE; 

A  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  into  the  Land  of  Canaan,  in  Ran- 
dolph County,  Virginia,  a  Country  flowing  with  Wild  Animals, 
such  as  Panthers,  Bears,  Wolves,  Elk,  Deer,  Otter,  Badger,  &c, 
&c,  with  innumerable  Trout,  by  Five  Adventurous  Gentlemen, 
without  any  Aid  of  Government,  and  solely  by  their  Own  Re- 
sources, in  the  Summer  of  1851.  By  "  The  Clerke  of  Oxen- 
fobde."     With  Illustrations  from  Life,  by  Strother. 

"This  is  a  handsomely-printed  and  beautifully-illustrated  volume.  Those  who  hare 
a  taate  for  held  sports  will  be  delighted  with  this  cleverly-written  narrative  of  the 
achievements  and  experiences  of  a  hunting  party  in  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  Old 
Dominion.  — Savannah  Daily  News. 

"A  queer,  quaint,  amusingly-written  book,  brimful  of  drollery  and  dare-devil  humor. 
The  work  overflows  with  amusement,  and  has  a  vignette-title  and  other  beautiful  illus 
trations,  by  Strother." — Yankee  Blade. 

"  A  pleasant  book  of  Americas  character  and  adventure,  of  interest  geographically, 
sportively,  and  poetically.  The  authorship  is  of  a  good  intellectual  race  ;  the  "  Clerke 
of  Oxentorde,"  who  figures  in  the  title-page,  being  own  brother  to  the  author  of  "  Swal- 
low Barn,"  which,  as  everybody  knows,  is  the  "  Sketch-Book"  of  thut  land  of  gentlemen 
and  humorists." — Literary  World. 


MINNESOTA  AND  ITS  RESOURCES ; 

To  which  are  Appended  Camp-Fire  Sketches,  or  Notes  of  a  Trip 
from  St.  Paul  to  Pembina  and  Selkirk  Settlements  on  the  Red 
River  of  the  North.  By  J.  Wesley  Bomd.  With  a  New 
Map  of  the  Territory,  a  View  of  St.  Paul,  and  One  of  the  Falls 
of  St.  Anthony.     In  One  Volume,  12mo.     Cloth.     $1  00. 

'•  To  the  immigrant  to  the  northwest,  and  to  the  tourist  in  search  of  pleasure  it  is  wor- 
thy of  being  commended  for  the  valuable  and  interesting  knowledge  it  contains." — Chi 
cago  Daily  Tribune. 

•'  The  work  will  surprise  many,  as  it  opens  to  us  a  new  land,  shows  its  vast  resources, 
and  treats  its  history  with  all  the  accuracy  that  could  be  acquired  by  diligent  research 
and  careful  observation,  during  a  three  years'  residence." — Boston  Gazette. 

'•  It  contains  notices  of  the  early  history  of  the  country,  of  its  geographical  features,  its 
agricultural  advantages,  its  manufactures,  commerce,  facilities  for  travelling,  the  charac- 
ter i if  its  inhabitants — everything,  indeed,  to  illustrate  its  resources  and  its  prospects." 

■  Puritan  Recorder. 

-  We  Have  seen  no  work  respecting  the  northwest  of  equal  value  to  this." — Christian 
Intelligencer. 


C 


THE  YEMASSEE. 

A    Romance  of  South  Carolina.     By   William  Gilmore  Simms. 
Author  of    "The    Partisan,"   "Guy  Rivers,"   &c,    &c.     New 
and  Revised   Edition.      With   Illustrations   by  Darley.      12mo 
Cloth.     $1  25. 

"  A  picture  of  the  early  border  life  of  the  Huguenot  settlers  in  South  Carolina.  Like 
Scott's  novels,  it  is  a  mixture  of  history  and  romance." — Hartford  Christian  Secretary. 

"  It  is  written  in  an  uncommonly  glowing  style,  and  hits  off  the  Indian  character  with 
uncommon  grace  and  power." — Albany  Argus. 

14  The  whole  work  is  truly  American,  much  of  the  material  being  of  that  character 
which  can  be  furnished  by  no  other  country." — Daily  Times. 

"The  delineations  ot  the  red  men  of  the  south  are  admirably  sketched  while  the  his- 
torical events  upon  which  the  work  is  founded  are  vouched  for  by  the  author  as  strictly 
true." — Ntw  Bedford  Mercury. 


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ART  AND  INDUSTRY, 

As  Represented  in  the  Exhibition  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  New  York. 
Showing  the   Progress  and   State  of  the  Various  Useful  and  I 
thetic   Pursuits.      From   the   New   York   Tribune.      Revised   and 
Edited    by    Horace    Greeley.       12raoM    Cloth.      Fine    Paper, 
no.     Paper  Covers,  50  Cents. 

'•The  articles  comprised  in  this  work  are  thirty-six  in  number,  on  various  subjects; 
they  are  elaborately  ami  vigorously  written,  and  contain  much  desirable  information." 
— Savannah  Republican. 

'•  Jt  will  he  read  ely  and  with  interest  by  all  who  are  engaged  in  any  depart 

ni'iit  (il  the  useful  or  graceful  arts." — Lowell  Journal  and  Courier. 

■■  Everybody  interested  in  the  state  of  American  art  or  industry  should  have  a  copy." 
—  Il>  fitter,  1'h.ila. 

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large  amount  of  information,  In  relation  to  the  latest  improvements  in  science  and  art." 
— Arthur's  Home  Gazette. 

"  In  each  department  of  industry  there  is  a  rapid  view  of  the  history  of  the  art  or 
arts  Involved  in  its  production,  to  thai  the  work  is  much  more  than  a  mere  descriptive 
account  of  the  contents  of  tl  <l  Palace.     1  >  be  studied  for  the  informa* 

ticjn  it  contains,  and  to  be  preserved  f  reference." — Puritan  Recor  ton. 

'■  Especially  to  the  mechanic  and  th>-  manufacturer,  this  book  will  prove  highly  ac- 
ceptable."— Christian  Secretary,  Hartford. 


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A  MO  NT  If  IN  ENGLAND. 

])y  11im;v    T.  Tri  kt.km an.     Author  of  **  Sicily,  a   Pilgrimage," 
*<  The  Optimist."  tVc.     12mo.,  Cloth.     75  Cents. 

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cept -ringfiel 

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th  beauty." — If.  V  I 

" This  is  really  a  tiul  book.    The  authi  II  known  as  an  o  od  vigor- 

ous writer  SI  ." — Christian  Freeman. 

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ties,  books,  i  and  other  et  cetera  which  came  In  his  tray." — Zton't 

//.  raid. 

■■  Mr.  Tuckerman  Is  one  of  the  purest  and  most  elegant  writers  that  adorn  American 
literature." — Knickerbocker,  Albany. 


irK 


VASCONSELO 

A   Romance  of  the  New  World.     By   Frank   Cooper.     12mo.. 

Cloth.     $1  25. 

"The  scenes  are  laid  in  Spain  am!  th--  New  World,  and  the  skill  with  which  the  pomp 
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esting works  of  American  fiction." — JV.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

••  It  is  well  writt.-n,  full  of  epirit,  interesting  historical  facts,  beautiful  local  descrip- 
tions, and  a  ined  characters.  Cuban  associations  abound  in  it,  and  there  is  a  fine 
southern  clow  over  the  whole." — Boston  Transcript. 

"It  j  written,  full  of  sparkle  and  freshness,  and  must  interest  any  one  whose 

appreciation  is  at  all  vigorous." — Buffalo  Express. 

"The  story  is  an  int  e  one,  while  the  style  is  mo  hingly  good  for  theso 

da]  .  writing.1" — Arthur's  Hume  Gazette. 

an  American  romance,  and  to  such  as  are  I  r  of  literature  it 

will  be  found  intensely  intei  Man  Stcrttuty. 


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NAPOLEON  IN  EXILE  ; 

Or,  a  Voice  from  St.  Helena.  Being  the  opinions  and  reflections  of 
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ment, in  his  own  words.  By  Barry  E.  O'Mkara,  his  late  Sur- 
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on  steel.     2  vols.  12mo,  cloth,  $2. 

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words  and  habits  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  and  its  pages  are  endowed  with  a  charm 
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"  Every  one  who  desires  to  obtain  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  character  of  Napoleon, 
should  possess  himseif  of  this  book  of  O'Meara's." — Arthur's  Home  Gazette. 

"  It  is  something  indeed  to  know  Napoleon's  opinion  of  the  men  and  events  of  the 
thirty  years  preceding  his  fall,  and  his  comments  throw  more  light  upon  history  than 
anything  we  have  read." — Albany  Express. 

"  The  two  volumes  before  us  are  worthy  supplements  to  any  history  of  France." 
/   tton  Evening  Gazette. 


MEAGHER S  SPEECHES. 

Speeches  on  the  Legislative  Independence  of  Ireland,  with  Intro- 
ductory Notes.  By  Francis  Thomas  Meagher.  1  vol.  12mo, 
Cloth.     Portrait.     $1. 

"  The  volume  before  us  embodies  some  of  the  noblest  specimens  of  Irish  eloquence  ; 
not  florid,  bombastic,  nor  acrimonious,  but  direct,  manly,  and  convincing." — New  York 
Tribune. 

"  There  is  a  glowing,  a  burning  eloquence,  in  these  speeches,  which  prove  the  author 
a  man  of  extraordinary  intellect." — Boston  Olive  Branch. 

"  As  a  brilliant  and  effective  orator,  Meagher  stands  unrivalled." — Portland  Eclectic. 

"  All  desiring  to  obtain  a  good  idea  of  the  political  history  of  Ireland  and  the  move- 
ments of  her  people,  will  be  greatly  assisted  by  reading  these  speeches." — Syracusi 
Daily  Star. 

"ft  is  copiously  illustrated  by  explanatory  notes,  so  that  the  reader  will  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  the  exact  state  of  affairs  when  each  speech  was  delivered."— 
Bos.on  Traveller. 


THE  PRETTY  PLATE, 

A  new  and  beautiful  juvenile.     By  John  Vincent.     Illustrated  by 
Darley.    1  vol.  lGmo,  Cloth,  gilt,  63  cts.    Extra  gilt  edges,  88  cts. 

"We  venture  to  say  that  no  reader,  great  or  small,  who  takes  up  this  book,  will  lay  il 
down  unfinished." — Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"  This  is  an  elegant  little  volume  for  a  juvenile  gift-book.  The  story  is  one  of  peculiai 
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Boston  Christian  Freeman. 

"  One  of  the  very  best  told  and  sweetest  juvenile  stories  that  has  been  issued  from  the 
press  this  season.     It  has  a  most  excellent  moral." — Detroit  Daily  Advertiser. 

"  A  nice  little  book  for  a  holyday  present.  Our  little  girl  has  read  it  through,  and  pro- 
nounces it  first  rate." — Hartford  Christian  Secretary. 

"  It  is  a  pleasant  child's  book,  well  told,  handsomely  published,  and  illustrated  is 
Parley's  best  style  '—Albany  Express. 


REDFIi:  AR    PUBLICATIONS. 


POETICAL    WORKS  OF  FITZ- GREENE  HALLE CK 

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"There  are  few  poems  to  be  found,  in  any  language,  that  surpass,  in  beauty  ol 
•nought  and  structure,  some  of  these." — Boston  Commonwealth. 

"  To  Hie  numerous  admirers  of  Mr.  Ilalleck,  tliis  will  be  a  welcome  book  ;  for  it  is  a 
characteristic  desire  in  human  nature  to  have  the  productions  of  our  favorite  authors 
in  nn  elegant  and  substantial  form." — Christian  Frrcman. 

"  Mr.  Ilalleck  never  appeared  in  a  better  dress,  and  few  poets  ever  deserved  a  better 
one." — Christian  Intelligencer. 


THE  STUDY  OF  WORDS. 
By   Archdeacon  R.  C.  Trench.     One  vol.,  12mo.,  price  75  cts. 

•'  He  discourses  in  a  truly  learned  and  lively  manner  upon  the  original  unity  of  Ian 
guage,  and  the  origin,  derivation,  and  history  of  words,  with  their  morality  and  sep 
state  spheres  of  ineanii;  nintr  f—$t 

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iar  and  th-'  peneral  i  -X<ic  \ork 

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— Be  g  Traveller. 


■D* 


BRONCHITIS,  AND  KINDRED  DISEASES. 

In  lnt  adapted  to  common  r  1>\   W.  W.  Hall,  M.  D 

One  vol.,  12  mo,  price  $1.00. 

"It  is  written  in  a  plain,  direct.  stylo,  and  is   free  from  the  quackery 

which  marks  manv  of  the  popular  medical  books  of  tin:  day.  It  will  prove  useful  to 
who  need  it.""—  Central  Ch.  Herald. 

"  Those  who  ar>  men,  or  preparing  for  the  sacred  calling,  and  public 

speakers  generally,  should  not  fail  ol  securing  this  work."— CA.  Aml>, 

"  It  is  lull  of  hints  on  the  nature  o)  the  vital  organs,  and  does  away  with  much  super- 
stitious dread  in  regard  t  ion." — (Trams  County  ll'hij?. 

•'This  work  civ-  istructton  in  regard  to  food  ami    hygienic  iufln- 

■mcea."— Nashua  Oasis. 


** 


KNIGHTS  OF  ENGLAND,  FRANCE,  AND  SCOTLAND. 
i3y  IIknry  William  Herbert.     One  vol.,  12mo.,  price  $1.25. 

"  They  are  partly  the  romance  of  history  and  partly  fiction,  forming,  when  blended, 

portraitures,  valuable  from  the  correct  drawing  of  the  times  they  ill >  nd  interest 

r  romance." — Albany  Knickerbocker. 

iey  are  spirit-stirring  productions,  which  will  be  read  and  admired   by  all  who 

ire  with  historical  tales  written  in  a  vigorous,  bold,  and  dashing  style." — Boston 

Jour  a  el. 

"These  legends  of  love  and  chivalry  contain  some  of  the  finest  talcs  which  the 
granitic  an  Ful  pen  ot  Herbert  has  yet  given  to  the  lighter  literature  of  the  dn>  " 

-ft'-rott  Fr, 


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